John, Damned
by Domino Darkwolf
Summary: John escapes a Hell that hardly noticed him, but his soul did not survive; it's tainted, twisted and damned to an eternity of demonism. It's a fate he's come to accept, until a run-in with his boys and an encounter with Crowley complicates his freedom. [Canon-based AU/alternate season 12]
1. Chapter 1

**Hello, and welcome! Thanks for stopping by! I haven't written much in the way of fanfic lately, but it looks like I'm coming out of my slump and I hope you enjoy what you're about to read. Before we begin, I'd like to give fair warning on a thing or two. First, this may get a little on the graphic side in the violence department _._ The main character _is_ a demon, after all. Thing two is, while this is a work in progress and I can't say for certain yet, the ending will likely not be warm and fuzzy. I don't wa** **nt to say it's a death fic, but it might be, so don't get mad if that's " the direction it takes. Thirdly, this is a John Winchester fic, and while I don't paint him in a particularly heroic way, I'm not bashing him either, so if you absolutely hate John Winchester and think he's just the worst, you may not want to read this.**

 **I think that's it. Enjoy! (And don't forget to review! Something as simple as "I like this" is enough to make my day and keep me writing!)**

* * *

The second time I fell was different than the first. The first time, Azazel dragged me down so fast that I couldn't see anything but the furious light surrounding us in a dizzying vortex of blazing yellow and choleric red. The tyrant with marbled yellow eyes presented me Alistair himself and left me to suffer at the hands of the torture master for a century.

The second time — just after I'd helped my boys finish what old Yellow Eyes had started all those years before — I was unescorted. There was no powerful demon overlord whisking me through the underworld, no guide leading me to damnation. The second time, I just… fell.

Literally.

I descended backwards at a sluggish pace, slipping through a hot abyss of murky green clouds so thick it felt like I was sinking into a dismal sea. A powerful stench of sulfur closed its fingers around my throat and choked me until I could barely breathe. Piercing screams and hopeless wails bellowed up from below, thousands of voices crying out in the bitter darkness. When the filthy smog gradually began to thin, faint figures and shapes took form amidst the green veil; silhouettes of suspended cages crammed full of writhing souls, chains flaunting bloody bodies fashioned to meathooks, jutting spears and pointed lances impaling living carcasses that convulsed and howled and begged for a death that would never come.

The thick, sulfuric fog began to dissipate the further down I fell, and once I'd cleared the sooty clouds, gravity readjusted itself. I swiftly dropped the rest of the way, and landed with a sickening crunch into a crater of naked, anguished souls that stretched on as far as I could see. They clawed at me with bony fingers and sharp nails. They grabbed at my limbs, and tore at my clothing, trying to drag me down into the depths of the fleshy sea. For a minute, I almost let them. I was, after all, damned; what other choice did I have?

And then I remembered; I am John fucking Winchester. And I wasn't going to let Hell hold me.

* * *

 **DISCLAIMER: I do not own, nor am I affiliated with, Supernatural, the CW, or anyone who works on or with the show or network. I'm mildly affiliated with Canada, and once Richard Speight (Jr) retweeted one of my tweets. That's as close to the show as I've ever gotten. There's an OC that is my brainchild, but I'm not entirely sure I want to claim responsibility for her.**


	2. Coming Home

**1080 Years Later**

 **(9 years topside)**

A man — or at least something that vaguely resembled one - leaned against a rough, gray stone wall. His sunken red eyes stared down at his smoky, blackened fingers with a demeanor that was almost too casual to be truly relaxed. He was waiting for something, for someone, and his plans were taboo.

This demon, would be the first person — former person — to see me in over a millennia.

The idea of escaping Hell was nerve-wracking enough to make me want to throw up, and I might have if I'd had anything to eat in the past thousand years. After all the running, all the shadows I'd hidden in and walls I'd crept behind, I was finally facing my freedom. I just had to show myself to one little crossroads demon.

I revealed my presence by silently stepping out from the shadows of the cave-like hall, appearing as if from nowhere. He jumped in surprise, but instantly began to relax when he realized I was not one of his superiors. A sly grin slid across his lipless mouth.

"Bram, I presume," I spoke with an unwavering confidence that I didn't feel, my voice harsh, tarnished by my demonic condition.

"Who might you be?" the demon Bram asked, eyeing my blackened wispy form.

"Maddox." I supplied him with the name I had given my new self. My demon self.

"You don't look familiar," Bram said as he studied my sunken face, his eyes narrowed.

"No?" I affected a bored tone. "Word is you've been smuggling demons topside."

"Maybe," Bram replied with an air of suspicion. "What's it to you?"

"I want a ride out," I said in a low voice.

A greedy gleam sparked in his eye. "It'll cost you."

"I can pay."

Bram nodded. He glanced about our surroundings, checking for unwelcome eyes and ears. Once he was sure that we were alone, he clamped his right hand on my left shoulder.

"Bend your knees," he advised.

"Wait." I said. I patted the side of my leg and called, "Come here, girl."

From the shadows bounded an eager hellhound with a black coat that was a little too leathery to call fur. She greeted me happily, sitting down in the space between Bram and myself and looked up expectantly. She came up just to my knees; a runt by hellhound standards.

"No way," Bram shook his head. "No hellhounds."

"I'll pay you double," I offered.

"Nope."

"Triple."

An impish half-smirk flashed across the demon's face. He glanced between me and the hound I called Freya before deciding to bend his own rule. He nodded wordlessly and stooped down to lightly touch Freya's rough, scar-marked head.

Suddenly, we were no longer in that dark, dank cave. There was no stench of sulfur, no blasting heat. The screams of the tormented had been replaced by the sound of cheerful birds, the darkness recalled by a midday sun. A warm breeze enveloped my body, filling my lungs for the first time in forever and it was all I could do to keep myself from crying.

Bram had brought me to a small, riverside park. There wasn't much to it; a couple of benches and some trees overlooking a wide, rust-hued river, and a cracked old sidewalk that followed the body of murky water. It wasn't a terribly attractive park, as far as parks go, but to me, in that moment, it was the most beautiful place I had ever seen.

I glanced over at Bram, who stood less than three feet in front of me and a good five inches taller than me. He occupied a human vessel, an olive skinned man with black hair and a clean, navy-blue business suit. He rolled his shoulders, settling into his new form with satisfaction before straightening his already intact tie. An artful grin crossed his lips and a devious brow arched as he peered down at me.

"Now," he began. "Let's discuss payment."

A sly smile crossed my own lips as I leaned into him and whispered. "Lets."

Bram hadn't checked me before he agreed to transport Freya and me out of Hell. Until me, he probably never had much reason to check anyone. It's not like your ordinary, everyday demons are walking around Hell carrying demon-killing weapons.

But I was no ordinary demon, and I did have a demon killing weapon; a silver blade crafted by the ancient Kurds. I had found it buried within the walls of Hell itself, hidden it and smuggled it top-side. The bone hilt sat snugly in my grasp behind my back.

I swiftly plunged the weapon into the demon's stomach. Bram gasped in surprise, his eyes growing wide as a hot orange light ignited within him, outlining the skeleton beneath his borrowed skin. I steadily twisted the blade and watched with a terrible satisfaction as the life flickered in his eyes and faded away. I'd never taken pleasure in killing before, and though not all of me enjoyed taking Bram's life, there was something horribly and significantly pleasing about it.

 _Oh god…_

I jerked the knife free from his body, causing him to collapse at my feet. _He's just a demon_ , I tried to remember as I felt myself begin to vibrate with a rush of adrenaline and shame. _He was just a demon._

 ** _I'm_** _just a demon._

I stared down at the corpse that laid on the weathered concrete with an empty expression and a trickle of blood that ran across his cheek from the corner of his mouth. For a moment, I felt nothing, and I wondered if that was better than feeling good, or if it was worse.

"That's what you get for trusting a demon," I spoke down to the body. My own words startled me, coming out in a silvery, feminine voice I did not recognize. It was then I'd realized what had happened; Bram had shoved me into a convenient, unsuspecting bystander.

I glanced down at the body Bram had stolen for me, eyeing the slender teal dress that hugged a pair of slim hips. My hands, which were dainty and manicured, patted a pair of round breasts as I stared down at the tall black high heels strapped to a set of clean feet. Long, sandy blonde hair spilled over my shoulders as I moved, and a long pearl necklace rolled noiselessly across my tan chest.

"Goddamnit," I cursed with a heavy sigh. I looked down to Freya, who cocked her head as she gave me a curious stare. "Well, we made it, didn't we?" I said as I casually tucked my knife into the pocket of the tan jacket my host was wearing. "Come on," I commanded Freya as I turned to walk down the sidewalk. "Let's find me another body."

* * *

Finding someone to willingly host a demon for the rest of their lives was about as difficult as I could have realistically expected. It might have been simpler if I hadn't been picky about the condition or gender of my host-to-be. There had been plenty of vacant coma patents between the seven hospitals I toured, but the thought of possessing an empty body was unsettling (they're basically corpses for god's sake), and most of them were elderly, or too scrawny, or feminine. Not that age or size or gender would matter in the long run; my strength was not dependent on the person I would eventually end up possessing. Still, I wanted someone who resembled the man I used to be.

I found him, my ideal vessel, at the eighth hospital I visited. His name was Max Miracle. Max was twenty-eight. He was tall with a brawny build, and his eyes were electric blue. He wore his blond hair short but shaggy and unkempt, the golden color of his hair contrasting with the dark scratchy stubble that swept along his jawline and hugged his full lips.

Max was a combat veteran who had seen too much. His nightmares prevented him from sleeping, his depression from eating. He was riddled with a horrific anxiety that peaked during daily flashbacks that he would try to kill with whisky. Mentally, he was a wreck; he was hopeless, lost and suicidal. When I found him, he was recovering in the psych ward from an almost successful attempt at taking his life. He had slit his wrists with a deep precision that opened his arteries, and he had very nearly bled to death.

I came to him in the body Bram had forced me into. The soldier's room was dark, save for the warm, yellow light that penetrated the drawn curtains and spilled faintly onto the white linoleum floor. Max was lying flat in his bed, staring up with disinterest at nothing, a bandaged arm resting heavily on his forehead. His chest rose and fell with heavy, uneven breaths, and made no effort to acknowledge my presence as I invited myself into his room. I carefully strolled towards him, stepping carefully to avoid toppling over in the extremely uncomfortably and unreasonably tall shoes I was still wearing, and I quietly took a seat in the maroon chair beside his bed. My lips parted to speak, but I wasn't sure what to say. I'd never asked permission to possess anyone before. It wasn't something demons normally did. They — _we_ — usually took who we wanted and my every instinct told me to cram myself down his throat and claim his flesh for my own. But, demon or not, part of me was still John Winchester. I still had enough of a conscience left; I couldn't just take over someone like that.

Again.

"Hello, Max," I decided on simplicity to break the ice.

"Who are you?" Max asked apathetically, side-eyeing me without moving his head. I offered a kind smile as I contemplated my response.

"This is going to sound strange," I haltingly began, temporarily ignoring his question. "But I need a body."

"A body?" Max echoed with disgusted curiosity. He turned his head to get a better look at me and my current vessel. "For what?"

"To possess," I replied openly. I blinked and my eyes flashed black, showing him I was no human. Max sat up sharply, his blue eyes widening as his fingers instinctively curled themselves into hardened fists.

"What are you?" he whispered, as his chest began to rise and fall quickly in a borderline panic. "Are you real?"

"Very," I responded to his second question first. "I'm a… demon," I explained. I paused to allow the weight the word _demon_ held sink in. I had never spoken those words before, I had never admitted it out loud. Hearing myself say it, feminine voice and all, made it all seem more real that it had ever felt in Hell.

"I need a new body," I told him after the grudging acceptance of my condition settled. "I would like to use yours, if you'll let me."

Max's brows creased as his face fell into a look of bewildered confusion. His posture remained rigid, but his breath began to calm and his fists relaxed.

"You're trying to decide if you're dreaming or if you're hallucinating," I said, venturing a guess. "Logic tells you you're asleep since you're not prone to hallucinations. But it feels too real to be a dream. Too substantial."

Max nodded hesitantly. I studied him from behind black eyes as I waited for him to come to terms with this new reality. The reality that demons were real, and there was one sitting at his bedside.

"You're… a demon?" Max said finally. He still didn't sound like he quite believed it. I nodded quietly as he shifted uncomfortably. "And you want to possess me?" He repeated everything I'd just told him, seemingly to himself. "But you need my permission?"

"No," I shook my head. "I don't. But it would make me feel better if I had it."

"Why?" Max wanted to know.

"I'm not exactly your everyday demon," I told him, casually sitting back in my chair. "I have something most demons don't."

"What's that?" he asked curiously.

"A conscience."

Max carefully pondered my words, my request, my existence.

"Why me?" he wondered after a minute of thoughtful silence had passed.

"You're in peak physical condition," I explained simply. "And you don't seem particularly interested in piloting that skeleton of yours anymore."

A faint, rosy hue rose on Max's cheeks as I nodded to the white bandages wrapped snugly around his wrists. He let out a heavy, guilt-laden breath as he studied his self-inflicted injuries.

"What are you going to do with me?" he asked softly.

"I haven't decided yet," I admitted, a tiny smile tugging at the corner of my lips. "Maybe I'll try living for once."

Max stared at me with a weighty reluctance, not overly sold on the idea of me taking the helm of his personal vessel.

"Look," I began with an impatient sigh. "I'm going to be honest with you. I'm kind of a fugitive. I just broke out of Hell and all I want to do is sit on a beach somewhere and avoid demons, which is something I am very good at. If you let me possess you, I can't guarantee it's all going to be beaches and beers - I might have to do things you might not like me doing — but I'll try and make it worth your while."

"How?" Max questioned curiously. "What can you offer me?"

"Peace."

"Peace?" Max echoed, not entirely put off by the idea.

"I can make you sleep through most of it," I promised.

This piqued Max's interest, he seemed to be genuinely contemplating my offer.

"Not all of it?" he wanted to know.

"No," I shook my head. "Probably not all of it."

There was a long pause and then, "How long do you need my body for?" He asked, more out of vague curiosity than anything. I could tell his mind had been made up, and how long I planned on occupying his body was not entirely relevant.

"Could be a couple of days. Could be a couple of centuries." I paused as Max's nose wrinkled at the word _centuries_. "There's a good chance you won't survive once I'm gone."

"You're not going to do anything… _satanic_?" He questioned with discomfort.

"Nothing satanic or completely evil," I vowed as I raised my right hand, palm out, to show I meant what I said.

Max mulled this information over. On the one hand, I was offering him a reprieve from the torment he lived with. On the other, I was asking him to sacrifice whatever life he had left to me, and it could be hundreds of years before he finally dropped dead. A century is a long time when you just want it all to be over now.

"You know what?" Max spoke up at last. "Fuck it. Why not? You can use my corpse. You're right, I don't really want it anymore, anyway."

A wolfish smile crossed my lips before I realized what I was doing. I attempted to hide it by replacing my grin with something kinder, but quickly gave it up as a fruitless endeavor. I had a new body to get to, after all.

I'd never jumped into a person before. Not consciously, not on my own accord. But I found the task simple enough, the logistics seemingly hardwired into my demonized mind. I leapt from the woman's mouth and down Max's throat. It took less than a minute for me to fully transition myself from one vessel to the other, and when I did I found myself on my back. The force I'd used to drive myself into Max had knocked him — us — back on the hospital bed. I stared up at the solid white ceiling with my black eyes and took in a deep, satisfying breath.

"I need a cigarette."


	3. Same Damn Life

Living. It was a romantic notion, anyway.

I really did try. For a while, actually. I traveled for fun, not necessity. I visited a dozen national parks and a national lakeshore. I saw the Atlantic and the Pacific oceans in the same day. Twice. I flew to Europe and sailed down to Africa and from there I traveled so far east I eventually ended up back in the west.

And for a while it was good. Exploring places I'd never thought about visiting. Standing on historic grounds I'd forgotten existed. _Vacationing_. I consumed the sights and sounds, inhaled them as quickly as I could, just trying to get on to the next world wonder, the next beach, the next whatever.

I never was very good at relaxing.

I realized after a year on the road and on planes and ships and trains that I wasn't traveling for the experience. I wasn't navigating the planet for fun or to _live,_ as I said I'd do. I was trying to distract myself. If I were to stop, I would think, I would reflect. And by that point in my long, long existence, I had endured enough to know that introspection was hell.

At least it was _my_ Hell.

In Hell I had eluded the demons for over a millennia, but it hadn't all been running through narrow caves and slipping through shadows. There was a lot of time to sit. A lot of time to think. A lot of time to reflect.

When I first got to Hell — the second time around, that is — I didn't think I belonged there. I didn't _deserve_ to be there. It wasn't that I regretted selling my soul, not for what I'd gotten out of the deal. But I couldn't accept that Hell was it for me. I'd worked so damn hard, hurt so damn much for so damn long, the pit couldn't be where it all ended for me.

Except, after a while, I realized Hell was always where it was always going to end. People — good people — were dead because of me. I had taught my sons to be soldiers, sacrificed their happiness to my own crusade. I had expected them to bend to my ridiculous standards, but I never really raised them. I was gone too often to have done anything that resembled actual parenting. I never hit them, not once, but Jesus, I was a distant son of a bitch. I wasn't there for them, even when I _was_ around.

And then there was Mary. Everything I'd done since her death, I'd done for her. _Because_ of her. I swore my revenge and couldn't - _wouldn't_ — see anything but that. Everything else was just a means to an end, including my children. What kind of heartless bastard does that?

I couldn't even remember why I was so intent on avenging my wife. I remembered loving her, deeply and completely. But the reality of those feelings had long since dispersed and I no longer recalled what it was about her, about the mother of my children, that had driven me to feel so profoundly.

These thoughts fueled me to run. They trailed closely behind me wherever I went, and they continued to torment me on earth. I tried like hell to outrun them, but they drove me to pick up a blade and a gun and return to the same damn life I'd left behind so long ago.

Only, hunting no longer consumed me the way it used to. It no longer provided the powerful distraction I had been looking for. Because hunting as a demon was easy. Too easy. I could feel a monster's presence, could taste it in the air. I could see their true form beneath their mortal masks. I knew what I was hunting the moment I rolled into town, and, so long as there were no other demons around, it would be dead within a day.

Still, I pressed on. It was something to do, something that satisfied my demon-inspired lust for violence without letting it drag me down deeper into the abyss of malevolence. Something to keep me busy as I served out the rest of my sentence of solitude on earth.

At least I tried to serve my time. Fate has an annoying habit of altering one's plans.

I was working a Vetala case on the outskirts of Tallahassee the night we met. I suppose it was inevitable, us meeting. A hunter can only keep to himself for so long before he starts running into other hunters, and they were not the first I had encountered. Weeks before I'd had a run-in with a newer hunter named Cole, a man who found my existence perplexing. I had left him with a broken nose and a look of bewilderment.

But I digress.

I followed the pair of Vetala to a seedy motel, the kind of motel I used to stay in, back when I still needed things like sleep. The "women" — a thin brunette and a tall redhead, both dressed in short skirts and fishnet stockings — slipped into room seven, and quietly closed the door behind them. I watched them from my seat behind the wheel of a black '52 Ford pickup, and carefully checked the parking lot for witnesses. Satisfied I would be able to slip in and out without being seen, I popped the door open.

"Stay here, Freya," I instructed my canine companion. "Window's rolled down if I need you. Don't go jumping through anymore glass, you hear?"

Freya gave me an exaggerated look of guilt as she gradually laid on the leather bench seat. I rolled my eyes at her dramatic reaction but couldn't help the tiny grin that tugged at my mouth as I stepped out of the car and into the muggy night.

I moved with a swift silence across the parking lot, my right hand clutching the hilt of a silver dagger I kept hidden in the pocket of my black leather jacket. The door to room seven was locked, and no light crept out from inside. They were waiting for someone.

I threw my elbow into the wooden door, and the latch cleanly snapped in half upon impact. The door creaked open and I let myself in, brandishing my weapon as I looked about the dingy room. A couple of twin beds sat on the left wall, neatly made with duffle bags sitting on top, and a cheap wooden desk sat on the right side of the silent room. At a glance, the dark room appeared vacant, but I knew better. Even if I hadn't watched them enter the dingy room, the bitter scent of venom that clung to the thick humidity would have given them away.

I sniffed once, twice, to isolate their hiding spots, and I easily located the brunette. She was holding her breath in the shadows to my left, crouched in the cramped space between the window and the first bed. I nudged the door closed with my foot, and grinned thinly as her golden eyes met mine. She haltingly rose, hissing threateningly as she flashed her sharp fangs.

"Come on, you ugly bitch," I taunted as I turned to face her, holding my dagger out for her to see. "Try me."

The Vetala stared warily at the silver blade and took a cautious step back. A sly grin formed across her red lips, a tell that her sister was nearby. Not that I needed the hint; I could smell the sharp traces of the monster's poison as she noiselessly approached me on my right. Without looking away from the brunette, I casually put my hand up and sent the redhead sailing across the room. A thick gasp forced its way from her lungs as she slammed forcefully into the wall, and a sharp wail escaped her throat when she found she couldn't move.

"Wait your turn, sweetheart," I said lightly without turning my head. "Well?" I spoke directly to the terrified brunette. "I'm waiting."

The creature eyed me with apprehension. She knew what I was, and it changed everything. A desperate rage ignited behind her eyes as she flashed me her fangs and bravely stepped forward. She came at me hard with her fists swinging, hoping to get in at least one solid blow before the inevitable happened. I moved my head to the right to avoid her fist, and easily deflected her left fist with my arm. She had left herself wide open, unintentionally leaving her chest completely unprotected in her frenzied attempt to strike me. Without hesitation, I seized the opportunity and skillfully drove my dagger into her heart. A heavy breath escaped her lips, and I slid the blade a little deeper.

"Commendable effort," I said, almost sincere as her body slipped to the floor and began to deteriorate.

I turned and instantly set my sights on the redhead. I held up the dagger for her to see, showing her the sticky red mess that glistened across the blade, and took pride in the horror that flickered across her face as she stared at her sister's blood. I released my hold on her and she staggered, grasping at the wall for balance. "What about you?" I inquired. "Are you going to go out swinging, too?"

The redhead eyed me skittishly as I made slow steps toward her, and she cowered as I drew near.

"That's really disappointing," I commented. I paused when I reached the center of the room and arranged an expression of exaggerated and entirely false sorrow on my face. "And sad. Are you crying? How am I supposed to enjoy this if you're _crying_? You know what?" I stepped aside, clearing a path between me and the door. "Just get out of here. I'm not even in the mood anymore."

The Vetala sniffled, her wet eyes blinking at me with hopeful uncertainty.

"Go on." I motioned towards the door with my left hand. "Get out of here."

She didn't think twice about my offer. She steadied herself and made a break for the door. I snatched her mid-run and brought her into me so swiftly she didn't have time to struggle. I gradually pushed the bloodied blade into her chest, inching the sharp silver towards her heart, and I watched as her expression filled with shock and betrayal.

"I know," I nodded as she gaped up at me. "I'm surprised, too. I didn't think you would fall for that."

Old John — human John — wouldn't have been so cruel. The old me never would have taken his time or carelessly tried tricking creatures. The hunter I used to be never took pleasure in killing. But I wasn't John anymore, not really. I was a lot like him, but, at the same time, I was nothing at all like him. I was a demon. And there was something entirely satisfying about carnage. Something terribly enjoyable about watching the light fade, hearing the breath halt and knowing I had taken those things.

Fucking demons.

I removed the knife from her heart with a quick hand and released her from my grip. She tumbled lifelessly to the dirty carpet below, and carelessly left her body where it lay. I turned and pocketed my weapon, and casually made a stride towards the exit. I didn't get far; an invisible force suddenly confined me, preventing me from advancing any further. I looked up. Painted overhead in white, one shade lighter than the ceiling itself, was a sizable demon trap painted in the center of the room.

"Really?" I sighed in annoyance.

It was then that I realized where I was. This wasn't just any motel room. I was in a hunter's room. Two, judging by the bags that sat on each bed. Just as this new turn of events sank in, the door opened.

I squinted at the light that flooded the room, and the tall figures that stood silhouetted in the doorway.

"See, Sammy?" One of them said in a rough voice. "Told you it'd work."


	4. Family Reunion

_It has come to my attention that I forgot to mention when this story takes place. For those of you keeping track, I've written this as a potential season twelve, and I'm pretending everything from season eleven has been resolved (as it likely will be). So there you go._

 _Also, huge shoutout to the wonderful **AlexHamato** who has been a tremendous help in the editing/revision department. She also happens to be an excellent writer and I encourage you to check out her work._

* * *

"I didn't say it _wouldn't_ work," the taller of the two figures argued as they sauntered into the room. "I said that we _shouldn't_ try it."

My heart skipped as the door swung closed. The lights flickered on and, for the first time in over a thousand years, I laid eyes on my sons. An inaudible gasp escaped my chest as my mind exploded with excitement laced with shame, and it took everything within me not to let these emotions, or any emotions, show through. I swallowed hard past a lump in my throat as my boys eyed the ashen remains of the Vetalas.

 _Keep it together,_ I commanded myself. _You're a demon for fuck sake. Act like it._

"You must be Maddox," Dean said without fear, his green eyes sweeping over me.

"You must know Cole," I commented dryly, successfully keeping my voice from cracking. My eyes flickered up at the trap on the ceiling. "You knew I'd be here." I glanced back to Dean. "How?"

"We followed the sulfur brick road," he replied with a cold smile. "You weren't _that_ hard to track."

"You set me up?" I wondered out loud with mild amusement.

"Kind of," Sam reluctantly admitted. "The Vitals were obviously real."

"We figured you'd be looking for them," Dean added. "So we let it slip there was a hunter in town and where they could find him."

"Clever," I acknowledged with a nod of approval before I gave them a suspicious look. "Can I ask why you two went through all the trouble to trap me?"

"We just wanna talk," Dean said calmly, putting his hands up to show me he was, for the time being, unarmed.

"Fine. Talk."

"Why are you hunting?" Sam asked with genuine curiosity. A short laugh escaped my throat.

"You set this whole thing up to ask me _that_?" I laughed, amused but annoyed. I glanced between Sam and Dean, studying their hardened expressions. "No," I realized, answering my own question. "You wouldn't have bothered if you were just curious about my motives." I narrowed my eyes accusingly. "You plan on killing me."

The gravity of the situation I had unwittingly walked into struck me like a violent gale blasting across a stormy sea. It was strange enough, standing six feet in front of my own sons without them recognizing me, without them having any inkling of who they were talking to. But my sons _hunting_ me? Threatening to _kill_ me? That was a concept too outlandish for me to properly process. For a moment, it struck me as humorous, until I recalled just how much the demons had come to fear the infamous Winchesters. And then I wondered if they had gotten good enough to stand a chance against their old man.

"That depends," Dean said, and loosely folded his arms across his chest.

"On what?"

"Why you're hunting," Sam said, then added, "What is Crowley up to?"

"Fuck if I know," I replied shortly with a shrug. "I don't work for that asshole."

Sam shot a quizzical expression at Dean, who looked just as skeptical.

"How do you not work for Crowley?" Sam asked.

I hesitated. They already knew more about me — demon me — than I felt comfortable with. But I knew I needed to cooperate, at least a little, if I wanted to walk out of there without a fight. And I did.

"Crowley doesn't know I'm topside," I grudgingly supplied them with a half truth.

"You broke out of Hell?" Dean asked, looking somewhat impressed by the suggestion. "To hunt?"

"Well, no," I admitted. "I broke out because Hell is… well. You know. You've both been there."

"So why hunt?" Sam desperately wanted to know. I shrugged.

"I got bored," I lied. "Can't a demon hunt monsters without being questioned?"

"No," Dean replied, his eyes narrowing slightly at me. "He can't."

I sighed in frustration and eyed my sons, keeping the twinges of pain I felt from surfacing. While part of me was glad they couldn't recognize their dear old dad, our reunion was a little crushing. But then, I guess I don't know what I was expecting. I was a demon after all, and they were hunters. Hunters I had trained to hate demons more than anything else on the planet. They were just doing their job. Old me, John, would have been proud. New me, demon me – "Maddox" – was annoyed.

"Are we gonna do this, then?" I asked impatiently, casually shifting my weight as I looked between my boys.

"Do what?" Sam replied with a look of confusion, cocking his head slightly to the side.

"What you trapped me to do," I said, rolling my eyes. "Or, what you're going to try to do."

"You don't think we can kill you?" Dean questioned in a challenging manner, and raised a brow.

"I don't think you realize who you're dealing with," I replied with unwavering confidence. "I don't even know why you're so intent on getting rid of me. I'm not making deals of killing people."

"Not yet," Sam said. I gave him a cold look.

"I don't kill people," I swore through gritted teeth, flexing my fingers into hardened fists.

"Yeah?" Dean challenged skeptically. "What about your meat suit?"

" _Meat suit_?" I echoed, appalled by the term. "He's a human being for Christ's sake, not a goddamn puppet."

Sam and Dean exchanged a mystified expression, finding my reaction unusual.

"Did he just...?" Dean began to question.

"I think he did," Sam nodded, eyeing me suspiciously.

"My _vessel_ is fine," I informed them. "For the record, I asked his permission to possess him. You kill me, you kill him." I paused. "His name is Max, by the way."

An uncomfortable look flitted across Dean's face. He shot Sam a questioning glance, who shrugged in return. Neither of them seemed to know what to do with me, or if they even believed me.

They turned around and huddled close together, dropping their voices in a half-assed effort to make their conversation private.

"Do you trust him?" Sam whispered.

"Fuck no," Dean shook his head. "Never trust a demon."

"I know," Sam agreed. "But what if he's not lying about his… _vessel_ , or whatever? I mean, he's obviously some kind of hunter."

"True," Dean acknowledged. "But that's today. Who knows what he'll be hunting tomorrow?"

"Ghosts," I spoke up. Sam and Dean slowly turned to face me again, not entirely pleased I had interrupted their less-than-private conversation. "Probably," I added with a nonchalant shrug. "Or vamps. There sure are a hell of a lot vamps these days."

My boys frowned at my casual banter, clearly unamused.

"Look," I began with a calm voice. "I know you don't trust me. I don't blame you. I'm a demon. I get it. We're not a type to be trusted. But this whole macho demon-hating showdown. Can we just get it over with?"

"You seem pretty confident that you'd win," Sam observed. He stood straighter, and puffed his chest out to make himself appear more intimidating. "You do know this is kind of what we do, right? Professionally?"

"Oh, I know who you are," I said with a thin smile. "But I highly doubt you've ever gone up against a demon like me."

The brothers each raised a curious brow. They had dealt with cocky demons before, low-level demons who foolishly thought they could be the ones to do what Lilith and Alistair and Crowley could not. But they could tell I wasn't being brash. They could hear the truth in my voice. I was nothing like the others.

Not that I wanted to fight my boys, of course. That was the last thing I wanted to do. But I couldn't see them just letting me go. They didn't go through all the trouble of setting me up to just let me walk out of there.

The door silently creaked open behind Sam and Dean. When nothing entered, the brothers shrugged it off, presuming a gentle breeze had brushed open the door with the broken latch. Only there wasn't nothing, and it hadn't been a breeze; Freya had quietly slipped into the room. Her stance was rigid, ready, as she moved with her body low to the ground, stalking Sam and Dean. She bore her teeth and positioned herself to pounce.

"No!" I barked a harsh command, staring Freya in the eye as she abruptly sat with a heavy shame. Sam and Dean looked between each other before giving me a look of confusion.

"Hellhound," I casually explained, motioning to my companion that sat just behind them.

"Hellhound?" Dean echoed with a gulp. He swiveled around with discomfort, his eyes searching the room for signs of the beast. "Why is there a Hellhound here?"

"She's mine," I lightly explained. "She thinks you're holding me captive."

"Aren't we?" Dean inquired. A grin found its way across my lips.

From my inner jacket pocket I withdrew a silver plated pistol. I held it up for them to see, carefully keeping the barrel aimed away from them. Before they could react, I aimed at the outer circle of the trap painted on the ceiling and rapidly discharged three bullets, all shot in a straight line that effectively broke the seal. My boys exchanged an uncomfortable look, visibly unsettled by the extreme lack of effort it took for me to break free of their carefully planned trap.

"No." I coldly informed them as I shoved my gun back into my pocket.

I shouldered Dean out of the way as I casually strolled past him and Sam.

"Come, Freya," I whistled as I walked through the open door and into the motel parking lot. My companion happily obeyed, frolicking playfully at my feet as I headed towards my truck.

"Why didn't you just break out when we found you?" Sam's voice called from behind me, his curiosity temporarily greater than his desire to stab me.

"You two would have killed me," I explained with my back still turned as I approached the old black Ford. I opened the passenger side door and patted the leather seat, wordlessly inviting Freya to jump inside. She accepted the offer with vigor and allowed me to scratch her behind her ears. "You'd try, anyway," I added with an air of confidence. "That's no way to build trust."

"And why do you want us to trust you?" Sam couldn't figure out my angle.

I turned to face the hunters, who stared at me with an uncertain interest. From my jacket pocket I extracted a hard pack of cigarettes, and withdrew one. I lit it with a silver zippo as I pondered my response. Of course I _wanted_ them to trust me. I was, after all, their father, and what father wouldn't want his children to trust him? But I couldn't tell them this, not when I was trying to keep my identity concealed, and I instead considered what a demon – a more demony demon – might say.

"Honestly," I finally said with a breath of smoke. "I don't give a damn whether you two trust me or not. I just want you to leave me alone and let me hunt in peace."

It wasn't true, not wholly anyway. I didn't really want them to leave me alone. But I didn't deserve to be there with them, either.

"What's with that, anyway?" Dean asked, unsatisfied with the response I had first supplied them with. "Demons don't generally go around hunting monsters."

"Old habits die hard."

"You were a hunter?" Sam asked with a sincere interest. I looked between them decided not to confirm or deny this. I didn't want to tip them off anymore as to who I was, so I quietly drew on my cigarette instead.

"Don't hunters usually end up in Heaven?" Dean tested, to which I responded with a disapproving grimace. "Right." Dean picked up the hint.

"Anyway," I began with an exhale of thick smoke that encircled my head in the calm humidity. "It was nice meeting the infamous Winchesters, but I think I'm going to get going before one of you tries to stab me in the face."

"Hold on a minute, Maddox," Dean called as I turned around to close the truck door. "You're not going anywhere."

"I'm not?" I challenged, spinning around to cock a brow at him.

"No way," Dean shook his head, smugly folding his arms across his chest. "If we let you go, you owe us one."

"Fine," I hastily agreed as I rolled my eyes.

"But us not saying anything to Crowley's gonna cost you another one."

My eyes narrowed at Dean who looked quite pleased with himself. Sammy glanced between his brother and me with a worried expression, uncertain how I would react and whether or not it was a good idea to ask for favors from a demon.

"You're blackmailing me?"

"Not _blackmail_ ," Dean insisted. "Let's call it quid pro quo. We keep your secret, you do something for us."

"That does kind of sound like blackmail," Sam muttered, earning him an eye roll from his brother..

"As the demon you're blackmailing, I'm seriously pissed off right now," I said. My glare slowly faded as I stared at my oldest son, whose expression was unwaveringly cold. "But as a hunter I'm a little proud. What do you need me to do?"

Sammy looked to his big brother, apparently equally as interested as I was in what Dean wanted from me. A sly smile formed across Dean's lips and a devious spark twinkled in his eye.

"We need you to break into Crowley's compound."

"I'm sorry. For a minute there it sounded like you said you want me to break into Crowley's compound."

Dean's grin remained steadfast, as if he knew exactly what I was going to do. Sam pondered Dean's proposal with interest and smiled when he concluded that his brother's plan was solid.

"That could work," he agreed.

"What?!" I barked around the cigarette that hung loosely between my lips. "No. No way. I don't give a damn what that son of a bitch has, I am not going in there."

"I guess I'll just give Crowley a call then," Dean smoothly responded. He dig his phone from his pocket and held it up in front of him in an exaggerated effort to peer at the smooth screen. "Look at that." Dean paused to turn his phone around to show me Crowley's name across the bright screen with the number "666" beneath it. "He's even on speed dial."

I shifted uncomfortably as I narrowed my eyes at him. It was surreal, the way Dean spoke to me. He had always been the eager and obedient son, the one who wouldn't dream of talking back to me, let alone blackmailing me. Yet here he was, treating me like I was just some… demon.

"Dude," Sam said with his nose wrinkled. "Why do you have Crowley on speed dial?"

"We… talk a lot," Dean struggled to produce an excuse. "For work stuff. Shut up." He returned his focus on me. "Should I hit call?"

I breathed out angrily through my nose and folded my arms across my chest. I was cornered, and I had two options; risk outing myself to Crowley, or let Dean tell the king I was free. Either way, I was screwed.

"Wait," I spoke grudgingly with a heavy sigh before Dean could hit the call button. I growled in a low, demonic huff, and narrowed my eyes as they waited expectantly for me to say something more. "You two are assholes."

"I'll take that as a yes," Dean said with a triumphant grin, and he placed his phone back into his pocket.

"What do you need me to do?" I asked as unenthusiastically as possible.

"Crowley has a grimoire," Dean explained. "We need him to not have it."

I waited for him to elaborate, but nothing more was said.

"That's all I get?" I asked, feeling a strange hint of disappointment.

"That's all you get," Dean confirmed.

"Me not beating the crap out of you for trapping me." I motioned to the motel room across the parking lot. "That doesn't buy me a little trust?"

Not that I would have. But they didn't know that.

"It wasn't for nothing," he assured me. "We won't make you ride in the trunk."

"Wait," Sam interjected. "He's riding with us?"

"Yeah," I said. "What?"

"Yeah," Dean said with a shrug. "To make sure he actually does this thing and gets it to us," he explained. "I don't want to make this grimoire…" He trailed off temporarily, waving a hand as he searched for the right word. " _Stuff_ a… thing."

"A thing?" Sam echoed.

"Yeah, you know." Dean nodded. "The _thing_ that consumes a better part of a year. I'm done with that. I just want to go back to hunting ghosts and wendigos and shit."

"Fair enough," Sam agreed. "Just hunting monsters would feel kind of like a vacation."

"Then it's settled," Dean said with a tiny, half sincere smile. "Road trip to Uncle Crowley's summer house of evil."

"Don't call him that," Sam shook his head disapprovingly. Dean gave Sam a "come on" look, but quickly realized what he had said was a little creepy.

"Right," he admitted with an awkward cough. "Shall we?"

"Now?" I asked.

"Now."


	5. Family Road Trip

Riding in the backseat of the Impala was strange. Watching Dean behind the wheel and Sammy in the passenger's seat was downright bizarre. It had always been me driving the boys. _My_ boys. When they were so much younger and hadn't seen so much horror.

For a while, I just watched them. I listened to the tiny conversations that would occasionally break an otherwise thick and uncomfortable silence. They weren't doing anything in particular, nor were they really saying much of anything, but I couldn't remember the last time I had just watched my children. I couldn't recall the last time I had listened to them and their brotherly banter.

And then it occurred to me that I never had.

A heavy, uncomfortable ache began to settle in my chest. I shifted in discomfort, and cleared my throat. Had I been out on the road by myself, this is the point where I would have pulled over and scoured every newspaper and webpage for any kind of hint of monster activity. I would have immersed myself in the distractions of hunting, using the job as the boot that would stomp down the pile of _feelings_ that kept accumulating until I realized there was no feasible way to actually kill the guilt, and if there were, it would only make me more of a demon than I already was.

It was amazing, really. Despite the centuries and decades, I was still at war. Only now the war was raging not in the hot jungles and rice paddies of Vietnam, but inside of me.

"Where the hell is this place, anyway?" I abruptly shattered the heavy quietude that blanketed the Impala's interior. "It's not Hell, is it?"

"Baton Rouge," Dean reported shortly, his eyes drooping as he tried to focus on the road.

"I could drive," I offered automatically, forgetting how odd that might seem. "If you need to catch some z's."

"No way," Dean shook his head as his brows furrowed at the prospect. "I barely let Sam drive her. I sure as shit am not letting some demon drive my baby."

"Fair enough," I said quickly. "But are these really necessary?"

I held up my hands to display the set of cuffs that had been clasped around my wrist. A devil's trap had been expertly carved into the silver plating, rendering me unable to use my demonic powers. Of course, I _could_ , in all likelihood, break out of them. If Hell couldn't hold me, a set of fancy handcuffs sure as shit wouldn't. My boy's ability to break into and out of anything and anywhere didn't come from nowhere. But I stayed in them for the same reason I let Sam and Dean think they had successfully trapped me at the motel; I had to prove to them that I meant them no harm.

"Considering you're a demon," Sam began as he turned to look at me. "And we met, like, three hours ago, be glad it's just the handcuffs."

"Right," I said with a sigh as I sat back in my seat.

A thin line of pink light had begun to poke its head above the horizon, stretching its light across the sky to chase away the night. Flat fields and wetlands raced by in a silhouetted blur and already I could feel the fever in the humid southern air. It was going to be a hot day, and I grinned; ever since Hell, earth felt cold, and there was something oddly comforting about hot days

A familiar guitar riff echoed loudly from the speakers, prompting a fond smile until I realized exactly what song it was.

" _Livin' easy_

 _Lovin' free_

 _Season ticket on a one way ride…"_

"Why did it have to be this song?" I muttered under my breath.

"What?" Dean called from the front seat, his eyes glancing at my reflection in the rearview mirror.

"Would you mind changing the song?" I requested.

"Not an AC/DC fan?" Dean asked without sympathy, and I knew he had no intentions of finding a new tune.

"I am," I informed him. "This song just kind of lost its luster after… well, Hell."

"Right," Dean nodded, but didn't change the radio station. At least, not right away. He kept his eyes on the road as the sky gradually began to lighten and, just when it seemed like he was going to ignore my request, he sighed and rolled the dial to another classic rock station. Sam cocked a suspicious brow at Dean who frowned, looking somewhat displeased by his own action.

"What?" Dean spoke defensively. "He's got a point."

"Yeah," Sam slowly agreed, turning his head to view the land that rolled on along the highway, now visibly green in the ever-growing daylight.

The awkward silence returned and danced between an old Eric Clapton song, _Cocaine,_ and the healthy roar of the Chevy's engine. I stared out the windows of the car that was once mine, and absently pet Freya who laid across the backseat with her head in my lap. And then, quite suddenly, Sam became aware of what I was doing.

"Are you…" he began with an anxious intake of breath, snapping his head around to look at me. "Did you bring your hellhound?"

"Her name is Freya," I replied.

Dean jerked the Impala to the side of the road and slammed on the breaks. We involuntarily shot forward in our seats as the car came to a lurching stop, and fell back once it had settled in the dirt beside the highway. My eldest son turned to shoot me a furious look, attempting to cover the extreme discomfort he felt at having a loose hellhound in his car.

"No," he shook his head angrily. "No fuckin' way. Get that damn thing outta my car."

"No," I said calmly.

"Uh, yes," Dean fumed.

"No."

My boys exchanged a worried but infuriated glance.

"I'm sorry," I said. "Would you have preferred it if I left a _hellhound_ at the motel parking lot?"

"Yeah," Dean replied. "Now get it out of here."

"No."

It was probably cheating, me attempting to carry out my eternal sentence of solitude with a dog in tow. But we had been through Hell together in a fairly literal sense. I couldn't leave her down there, and I wasn't going to leave her on her own. Especially not in some parking lot in Florida.

"Get it out of here now," Dean repeated with a growl. "Or I swear to God I'll—"

"You'll what?" I cut him off, annoyed. "You'll call Crowley? Think real hard about how badly you want that grimoire, because you call that bastard and I'm out."

Dean's jaw clenched as his eyes narrowed at me. Sam glanced between the two of us, waiting for one of us to make a move. With a heavy huff, Dean turned around to face the road and shifted, defeated.

"Can you at least put her in the trunk?" he hotly requested.

"Nope."

His fingers anxiously tapped the steering wheel as he sat, fuming, seeming to weigh his options.

"Fine," he grudgingly agreed. "But if it tries anything, so help me god I'll—"

"Stab me in the head with that angel blade you've got tucked in your jacket pocket?" I finished for him.

Truth be told, I wasn't certain Dean was armed with his celestial weapon. While we're on the subject of honesty, I couldn't even be certain Dean actually had such a weapon. All I had to go on were rumors and folklore I had heard down in the pit. My snide comment hadn't just been for the sake of being snarky; I was offhandedly looking for conformation both my sons were armed with blades that could effectively kill me. For good kill me.

Just in case.

"Something like that," Dean verified he was packing some supernatural heat as he put the car in drive and set the car back on the road.

"If she tries anything, I will kill her myself," I assured them, confident it wouldn't come to that.

"You would?" Sam questioned skeptically, studying the level of sincerity on my face. "Why?"

I responded with a tiny smile and said;

"How far to Baton Rouge?"

* * *

We reached Baton Rouge by midmorning. Dean drove around the city limits, following the outskirts around the capital to the west. From there he continued on for another five miles to an abandoned mental institution that sat back from the road, tucked away behind tall, overgrown hedges and old trees draped with hanging French moss. Thick vines of ivy climbed up the stone structure, threatening to swallow the crumbling building completely. The surfaces not consumed by ivy were coated in barely legible graffiti, spray painted in a wide assortment of colors that clashed awkwardly against layers of older graffiti and the green tendrils that threatened to devour it, too. The narrow, barred windows, most of which were missing windowpanes, had long since been boarded up from the inside, the doors bolted shut from the outside. The uneven brick steps leading up to the wide, metallic doors had been strewn with a thick layer of dead leaves, cigarette butts and beer cans. It didn't look like anyone had been there in years.

"Are you sure this is the right place?" Sam asked as he studied the eerie asylum.

"That's what the last demon said," Dean replied as he put the Impala in park several feet away from the building. We climbed out into the muggy morning air, our eyes gazing up suspiciously at the haunting structure. There was no hint of a spell or misdirection. It wasn't pretending to be abandoned; it was just abandoned.

"A little quiet out here, boys." I observed.

"Yeah," Sam, to my astonishment, agreed with me. "It is."

"That's what they want us to think," Dean explained the obvious, at which I shook my head.

"It's not _too_ quiet," I explained. "It's just quiet. As in, nobody's home."

"You just don't want to go in there." Dean said lightly as he opened the trunk. I took a couple of steps back to peer inside the old arsenal. A discrete smile tugged at my lips as Dean grabbed a couple of sawed-off shotguns and a box of salt rounds.

"You know I don't," I replied, watching him load one of the weapons with practiced ease. "I will. I just don't think we'll find anything."

Dean shot me a mild scowl before tossing the loaded shotgun to Sam who caught it easily.

I leaned against the side of the Impala and began discreetly fidgeting with the handcuff locks. I paused in my task before the first cuff could spring free, and I pondered what I was doing. I contemplated why I had been handcuffed in the first place, and gradually understood it hadn't been to prevent me from utilizing my demonic capabilities. Not entirely. I had been bound to make Sam and Dean feel safe, and breaking free wasn't going to impress them. It would make them uncomfortable, as I had when I broke their trap back in the motel, and if I made them anymore uncomfortable I could kiss any potential trust goodbye.

I sighed heavily and caught Sam's eye.

"Do you mind?" I requested with an irritated grumble. I held my hands up and jangled the chains that connected the silver cuffs. Sam appeared reluctant, but eventually removed the tiny skeletal-looking key and cautiously freed me.

"I need my gun," I said.

"I doubt it," Sam replied as he carefully stuffed the handcuffs into his jacket pocket.

"I want it." I returned flatly. Sam studied me for a minute before cracking a thin, sarcastic smile.

"Yeah," he said with a huff. "Right."

The way my sons were treating me was jarring. Understandable, but jolting none the less. Sure, Sam used to challenge me, but he never would have dared to ignore me or the orders I gave him. And now he was scoffing and treating me like I was some…

 _Damnit_.

"Come on, Freya," I commanded with an aggravated grunt, prompting the hound to leap excitedly from the car. The boys pretended that her presence didn't bother them, but they remained visibly unnerved. "You two can stay out here." I said shortly. "I think I can wander through an abandoned building by myself."

"And if it's not as abandoned as it looks?" Dean asked. I reached into my jacket and withdrew my demon-killing knife.

"I think Freya and I can cover it," I casually stated. "But feel free to join us if you must."

"Is that…?" Sam trailed off in awe. He felt around in his own pocket before pulling out a similar weapon, a Kurdish-made blade with serrated edges and symbols cleanly etched across its surface. "Where did you get that?"

I grinned.

" _If_ this place is occupied," I said instead, choosing to ignore Sam's question. "And this grimoire is inside, I'm going to need to know what it looks like."

Sam grimaced as he eyed me and the weapon I had kept hidden on my person. It was difficult to tell what bothered him more; the fact I had never actually been fully disarmed, or the fact I had a demon killing knife similar to the one he and his brother carried. As if it were somehow wrong for a demon to possess such a weapon.

Dean dug a folded piece of white paper from his back pocket which he passed to me. I opened it to find a photograph of a weathered, leather-bound book with black, ancient symbols burned onto the cover. The symbols were unrecognizable to me, predating any of the archaic languages and spells I knew.

"It certainly looks like a grimoire," I commented with a shrug. "You're sure it's not just a really old cook book?"

Dean rolled his eyes and closed the trunk. The three of us, plus Freya, wordlessly filed up the steps, dead leaves crunching beneath our heavy boots as we carefully stepped through the overgrowth and foliage. The sun-bleached wooden doors were bolted securely, but couldn't withstand the force I laid into them with my foot. The locks snapped and the doors flew open with a loud crash that echoed throughout the vacant building. I took the lead inside, cautiously entering the dark asylum and glancing about the empty halls painted heavily with layers upon layers of unsightly graffiti. The air was thick and musty, disturbed dust swirled in clouds away from the door, and frightened birds fluttered in the distance. A cloying, rotten smell poured from the chipped walls; something had, more recently than not, died inside them.

"Hey, look at that," I said with a heavy sarcasm as I turned to face Sam and Dean. "No one's home. That's too bad. Better luck next time."

I attempted to push past my sons, who blocked my escape by standing close together with their arms firmly folded across their chests. As easy as it would have been to knock them down and liberate myself from the hot empty place, I grudgingly let Dean give me a non-threatening shove instead. They were the last people I wanted to hurt, and I knew they weren't going to let me off the hook. Not until the grimoire had been recovered.

"Not so fast," Dean said. "You're not getting out of this that easy."

"Yeah," Sam agreed. "We haven't even looked around yet."

"Right," I muttered with a sigh. I glanced down at Freya, who gave me an expectant look. "Go on, girl."

The hound bolted down the corridor with her nose to the ground, sniffing for traces of trespassers. I lit a cigarette and watched as she disappeared around a corner.

"What was that?" Sam asked.

"If anyone is in here, Freya will find them," I said with a nonchalant shrug. I paused thoughtfully, taking a long drag from my cigarette. "You boys might want to draw up a trap," I suggested with a breath of smoke. "Just in case she does find something."

Dean wordlessly turned and headed down the stairs to the Impala to retrieve some paint, leaving Sam and I to stand, wreathed in grey smoke.

"Do you have to smoke that here?" Sam asked, waving his hand in front of his face. I responded by taking another long drag and slowly exhaling a thick cloud of smoke.

I wanted to blame my asshole-like behavior on my demonism. But that wasn't quite it. I was trying to distance myself from him, from both of them. I didn't want them to get too close. I didn't want them to find out who I was.

"What does Max think about you smoking?" Sam was curious to know.

"Max doesn't mind," I assured him shortly.

I glanced down the barren halls for signs of Freya, and Sam took a step back to avoid the smoke.

"You used to be a hunter, huh?" He attempted conversation in the absence of his brother.

"Last time I checked, I still am," I replied.

"Fair enough." Sam paused, contemplating his next question. "How'd you end up in the pit?"

I hesitated. I drew in another lung full of nicotine and carefully pondered my response.

"Had to go somewhere, didn't I?"

"Vague," Sam said, but didn't bother to press me for information. "You don't trust me, do you?"

"The hunter side of me does," I replied. "The demon side? Not so much. You _are_ kind of blackmailing me here."

Sam chuckled.

"Understandable," he said.

Dean rejoined us with a can of white spray paint. He vigorously shook the can as he eyed the concrete floors littered with leaves and paint chips, empty beer cans and plastic sandwich baggies. He stepped past me and began sweeping the debris with his foot when we heard it; a ferocious snarl and a terrible scream. Dean stood straight, alert, hand on his gun as Sam reached for his demon blade. I casually flicked my cigarette butt to the ground and fixed my eyes on the corridor.

Freya rounded the corner, inching backwards with her body stooped, and a human leg tightly clenched between her teeth. The leg belonged to the screaming demon she dragged down the hall. The demon — who possessed a twenty-something year old male with fiery red hair and pale skin — shouted in terror and agony as he was ferociously pulled towards us.

"You still got those cuffs on you?" I questioned. Sam felt around in his left pocket and pulled out the silver plated cuffs. I nodded in satisfaction and watched Freya and her prey approach. She stopped at my side, but kept her jaws clenched around the demon's leg as Sam swiftly locked the handcuffs around the demon's wrists.

"Drop it," I commanded, and the hound released her grip on the panicked demon, revealing deep gashes torn across his flesh. Two sets of long claw marks ran down the demon's blue, blood stained t-shirt. The demon sat up, his chest heaving as he looked between Sam and Dean, then to Freya. He studied me last, eyeing me intensely. My pulse rose; what if he recognized me?

"Where's Crowley?" Dean asked roughly.

The demon snapped his attention to Dean and contemplated his options; tell us nothing and die slowly, or tell us everything and die quickly.

"He's gone," the demon divulged, hoping providing information to the Winchesters would grant him _some_ mercy. "Everyone's gone. I'm the only one left."

"I can see that," Dean observed with a false smile. His face straightened and he added, "Where did they go?"

"I don't know," the demon swore nervously, visibly shaken by the situation. "They wouldn't tell me in case I ran into you two." He paused and redirected his gaze at me, his eyes narrowed. "I don't recognize you," he stated.

"Good," I returned with a thin smile. "Where's Crowley?"

"I told you I don't know," the demon insisted.

"Then you're not much use, are you?" I growled. I crouched in front of the demon and slowly withdrew the Kurdish demon knife from the inner pocket of my black leather jacket. The demon nervously eyed my weapon, his heart rate increasing as I dramatically closed my fingers around the bone hilt.

"Wait!" the demon shouted with a frenzied desperation, putting his hands up in a lame effort to protect himself. "I know of someone who does. Let me live and I'll take you to her."

"I think one demon in the Impala is enough," Dean spoke up, nodding sideways at me. "Why don't you just tell us where to find her?"

The demon looked between Dean and myself before warily eyeing Sam. He quietly considered his options and, when he realized he had none, let out a long, defeated sigh.

"Vegas," the demon said. "A crossroads demon, goes by Desdemona. She practically owns the city."

"That just makes entirely way too much sense," Dean commented, somewhat impressed by the idea of a demon operating an entire metropolis almost completely under the radar. Sam nodded in agreement.

"How come we never thought of that before?" He wondered out loud. Dean shrugged.

"Thank you," I said to the demon. "You've been very helpful."

A look of relief spread across the demon's face. His posture began to relax. He had betrayed his — _our_ — kind, but the Winchesters had left him alive.

Or so he thought.

With a swift hand, I sunk my blade into his chest. The demon gasped as a familiar orange light began to flicker within him. I watched the light crackle and fade, my hand clasped firmly around the bone hilt as the demon died his painful death. I tried like hell not to enjoy it. That wasn't the kind of person I was. John Winchester would never kill an innocent human for any reason, including getting to the demon under its skin. He would have let the demon go tell Crowley, would have greeted the armies of Hell head-on. But I wasn't John Winchester anymore. I was what was left of him.


	6. Little Talks With Dean

Nighttime in cities does not mean darkness, not even on the outskirts where the lights aren't so numerous or pressed so closely together.

An orange glow hung in the night sky like a heavy vapor, acting as a curtain between the earth and the stars, dulling the brilliance of the not-quite-full moon. The arid heat of New Mexico was completely still, easily carrying the deep rumble of late night traffic on the freeway across the dry, dusty land.

Albuquerque. It wasn't our final destination, but it was where Sam and Dean hit a wall. The seasoned hunters were running on fumes by the time we reached the desert city, and unanimously decided to spring for a couple of beds at a tacky, western-themed motel just beyond the city limits. As someone who didn't require sleep, and as some _thing_ the boys only vaguely trusted, I was not invited into their room, and was instead forced to kill time with Freya in the wide, uneven parking lot that encircled the inn. At first, Sam had proposed leaving me in the Impala, handcuffed to the steering wheel, but Dean felt less comfortable with the idea of leaving _some demon_ unattended inside his precious baby, and decided I had earned enough trust to be left to my own devices.

Motel parking lots in New Mexico — or anywhere, for that matter —at three o'clock in the morning are boring. I played fetch with Freya and a long, awkward stick for a while before I wondered if anyone was watching, and if they were, I considered how freakishly odd it must appear to them, watching a man throwing a stick that seemed to return on its own. So, to Freya's dismay, I stopped and instead ambled in circles around the motel. We did this for an hour or so until it had become monotonous and boring, and we retired to the sidewalk outside Sam and Dean's door where I chain-smoked cigarettes and sipped whisky from a stainless steel flask.

I gazed up at the moon that struggled against the veil of light pollution, and tried not to think of all the things that plagued me, the things that fueled me to run and made standing still a living — or post-living — hell. I tried not to think about the redheaded man I had killed in Baton Rouge, and I balled my hands into fists when I failed.

It was nearly five o'clock in the morning when their door creaked open and shattered the bitter thoughts that had plagued me in my solitude. I remained still with my head tilted skyward as I lazily puffed on the cigarette I held loosely between my lips. I listened to the sound of boots on the concrete sidewalk, and Dean eventually wandered into view from my left. He was dressed in the same blue jeans and black and white plaid shirt he had been wearing earlier, but now they looked rumpled and tired, matching Dean's demeanor. He did not appear well rested and it took me a moment to realize the weary expression he wore wasn't new and it wasn't temporary. Dean looked tired because he was utterly and perpetually exhausted. It took me a lot less time to understand I was the one that had done this to him.

 _What have I done?_

I liked to think what separated me from the other demons, the more demony demons, was a conscience. And it was, kind of. Mostly though, it was guilt.

Dean sleepily leaned against the trunk of the Impala and exhaled heavily. Crickets sang out to the creeping dawn from god only knew where, and their sound only emphasized the silence that lay between me and my son.

 _Say something,_ I mentally barked at myself. _Kill the silence before Dean realizes how awkward it is and starts asking questions._

"Can't sleep?" I said as my gaze shifted up to him.

"I got a few hours," he said, stifling a yawn. He stretched his arms and stuffed his hands into his pockets. "You didn't take off."

"I thought about it," I admitted with a shrug. "But I wouldn't get far. Not without smoking out."

"That's why you stayed?" Dean asked skeptically with a raised brow. "You didn't want to find a new meat— _body_?"

"Do you know how hard it is to find someone willing to let a demon possess them?" I asked.

"Not from a personal standpoint," he admitted with a nod and a thoughtful expression. "But I can't imagine it's an easy feat. What's with that anyway? Your…" He paused to wave his hand as he searched for the right word. " _Vessel_. Max. What's wrong with him?"

" _What's wrong with him?_ " I echoed, a little more than mildly offended, though I wasn't entirely sure why.

"Yeah," Dean said unapologetically. "I mean, there had to be something a little off for the guy to actually _let_ a demon possess him. So, is Max a devil worshiper or just plain nuts?"

I drew in a lungful of nicotine as I contemplated my response.

"Max…" I haltingly began, breathing out a cloud of smoke that seemed to cling to the breezeless air and lazily drifted into the parking lot where it hovered before it dissipated. "Max did four tours in Afghanistan. Saw a lot of fucked up shit. Kind of messed him up." I rolled up my jacket sleeves and turned my forearms up. Dean leaned over to peer down at the raised, white scars that ran down Max's wrists.

"Oh." Dean spoke so low it was almost a whisper.

"I offered him something in return for letting me pilot his skeleton," I continued, offhandedly confirming Dean's suspicions.

"Which was…?"

"Peace."

"Peace?"

"I can make him sleep," I explained as Dean leaned back and I rolled my sleeves back down. "He's asleep most of the time."

"That's it?" Dean asked, not entirely satisfied with my response.

"Believe me." I paused to take in a long drag from my cigarette. "It's a lot better than what he was dealing with."

Dean crossed his arms, but pondered my words. A subtle smile tugged at his lips and an almost inaudible chuckle escaped his throat.

"What?" I asked, narrowing my eyes at him.

"Nothing," Dean said, shaking his head. "It's just, you're either the weirdest demon I've ever met, or you're doing a decent job playing us."

I didn't respond to this. Instead, I took in another deep breath of smoke. Dean shifted uncomfortably and cleared his throat.

"You think I could bum one of those?" he reluctantly asked, nodding towards the cigarette. I wordlessly tossed the white and gold box to him.

"Thanks," he said, helping himself. He stared down at the pack in his hands and a small, fond smile spread across his lips. "My dad used to smoke these."

"Yeah?" I asked nervously, watching Dean light his cigarette with a silver zippo. He inhaled deeply, and exhaled with satisfaction. I hadn't thought twice about it when he'd asked for a cigarette; I had seen him smoking thousands of times, back when I was alive and still his father. But his look of guilty indulgence told me this was his first cigarette in a long time.

"You ever run into him?" Dean asked thoughtfully. "My dad? You were a hunter, right?"

At first, I didn't know what to say. I didn't want to lie to my son. But didn't want him to find out what had become of his old man.

"Can't say I did," I settled on a vague, half lie.

"How long you been a demon?" Dean prodded curiously after a moment, attempting casual conversation to fill the silence.

"Long enough," I supplied another hazy answer.

"You know, there's a cure for demonism," Dean informed me in a low tone, as if he were telling me classified information.

"Is that so?" I asked with uncertain interest.

"It is," Dean confirmed with a nod. "You do us a few favors and we might consider curing you."

I wordlessly nodded at his offer as my gaze fell to the black asphalt. I pondered the prospect of being cured. Of being a human again. Crowley couldn't drag me back to Hell if I wasn't a demon. Unless…

"Don't look too excited," Dean said archly. He flicked the ash from the tip of his cigarette. "I know demonism is fun when you're a demon. But you don't actually want to be one, do you?"

"No," I quickly shook my head. "Fuck no. It's just, if I'm cured, what happens to my soul when I die?"

"I dunno," Dean said with a shrug. "I guess maybe that depends on how you spend your second chance?"

"And if my soul technically belongs to Hell?"

Dean's brows furrowed in confusion before they raised with sudden realization.

"You sold your soul?" he asked, though it came across as more of a statement.

"I'd like to be human again," I insisted, neither addressing nor ignoring the question. "Believe me. I hate being a demon. This is not fucking fun."

 _It's a little fun._

"But I'd rather not go through the trouble of being cured if I'm just going to end up in Hell again."

"My dad sold his soul," Dean casually mentioned. "And he got out."

"You don't think your old man is in Hell?" I asked with an arched brow.

 _Where do they think I am?_

Wisps of grey smoke encircled his head as he carefully puffed on his cigarette and carefully considered my question.

"I guess I don't know where he went," he admitted, a fact that visibly weighed on him. "Why?" He asked, his body suddenly tense. "Have you seen him? Down there?"

 _Shit_.

"Not that I know of," I lied. Dean exhaled a short breath of relief and eased his rigid stance.

"I mean, if he were in Hell, Crowley would have bragged about that, right?" Dean tried to justify his belief that I was somewhere else. Somewhere other than Hell. Somewhere other than possessing the twenty-eight year old man sitting on the sidewalk beside him.

"I'm sure someone would have mentioned it," I agreed, despite knowing the truth. Being the truth.

Dean nodded and drew in a breath of smoke.

"Crowley definitely would have mentioned it," he reassured himself again. "He didn't deserve Hell, anyway."

"No?" I questioned with a challenging tone. Dean raised a brow and I realized what I'd done. I wasn't supposed to question anything Dean said about me, John me. I wasn't supposed to have known me.

"Don't get me wrong," Dean began. "He wasn't father of the year or anything. But he definitely didn't deserve to end up in the pit. It wasn't really his fault. Not all of it."

"What wasn't his fault?" I asked, as I carelessly tossed the stub of my cigarette into the parking lot.

"You haven't heard the story?" Dean casually asked.

"I've heard some stories. Apparently not all of them."

"My dad had been marked," Dean explained. "By a cupid. He and my mom."

A coldness crept into my chest and my heart stopped.

"What?" I whispered. I sat rigid, unable to breathe. "My mom's death, Sam's curse - it was all part of Heaven's fucking plan. He was basically under an Enochian love spell," Dean continued, blithely unaware of the change in my expression as the coldness inside me began to give way to a fiery rage. "His whole quest for revenge was pretty much fueled by that. Intensified, anyway."

I clenched my fingers into fists as the fury blazed inside my chest, extended its flames and engulfed every part of my very existence. The anger was so deep, so raw, I began to shake. Everything I'd done since falling in love with Mary had been out of my control. Turning to hunting, allowing fear and vengeance to consume me for decades, destroying the future my sons could have had; they were all things I never would have done had it not been for those goddamn angels.

"Why—?" I trailed off, my voice breaking as I tried to hold the temper from my tone. "Why would the angels want us— _your_ parents to get together?"

"For me and Sam," Dean casually replied, seemingly unaware of the slip or my look of shock. "We had to be born. So we could be the vessels for their fucking family feud bullshit. I bet they regret it now," he added with a rueful chuckle. It was all Fate. My life, all our lives, had been predetermined by angels. And I had gone to Hell for the things _they_ had always intended me to do.

I wanted to put my fist through the asphalt. I wanted to let out a terrible yell and rip something in half. I wanted to kill an angel.

Instead, I shakily lit another cigarette. I attempted to quiet my rage, for the sake of Dean, and the safety of every person sleeping in that motel. For the sake of my cover.

"I hadn't heard that story," I said, attempting — and miserably failing — a calm voice.

"You okay?" Dean asked, clearly detecting a hint of wrath in my voice. He took one last puff of his cigarette and flicked the stub into the parking lot where it landed with a tiny explosion of embers. "You look a little on edge."

"I'm a demon," I replied with an hurried huff of smoke.

"So, good and bad?" Dean stepped away from the Impala. "I'm gonna try to grab another hour. We'll hit the road in a few hours tops."

Right. The grimoire. In the midst of the revelations of what Heaven had done to me, I had nearly forgotten about the goddamn grimoire and fucking Las Vegas and that bastard Crowley.

"Take your time," I said with a bitter sarcasm, turing to face Dean as he ambled behind me towards his room. "The grimoire will just jump out of Crowley's hands on its own."

A small smile tugged at Dean's lips as he cracked the red door open.

"Man, you and my dad would've gotten along great," he commented, shaking his head as he stepped into his room.

I turned back to face the parking lot and Dean quietly closed the door, leaving me to my thoughts and my rage. Freya wandered to my side and laid herself beside me, slumping lazily against the concrete as she put her head on my lap and stared up at me.

"I know what you're thinking," I spoke quietly, gently petting her head. "Vengeance is what landed me in Hell in the first place."

Fate or not, the revenge I craved was all me. It was who I was.

Or did the angels make me that man?

A frustrated growl rolled through my throat as another surge of hot rage coursed through me. I clenched my fists and fought the urge to slam them onto the pavement. A restlessness began to pull at me, a hunger that would not be satisfied until I saw an angel dead.

"The first one I see, Freya," I said, my voice a dark, low grumble. "I swear, I'll kill it."


	7. Sam vs Demonkind

The road to Las Vegas was long, and time seemed to drag on like it had in hell. In reality, it took us just under eight hours to reach the city of sin, but from where I was sitting in the back seat of the Impala with a chest full of rage and a mind full of chaos, it felt more like weeks. Towns and cars and burned, red earth blended together, like a painting splashed with water; I saw everything, but none of it registered, and it all ran together in a giant mess of almost memory.

I was so engrossed in the utter hate I felt for the angels, that I almost didn't hear the plan.

"Maddox!" Sam snapped from the passenger's seat. Judging by the irritation on his face, it hadn't been the first time he'd called my name.

Okay, so I had missed the plan.

"What?" I asked, looking around, as the world came back into focus.

The Impala was parked outside a greasy-spoon diner on the outskirts of Las Vegas. A thin haze of gray clouds had settled above the city in a non-threatening gloom that did little but remind me of how hot it was. Dean was wiggling free from his flannel over-shirt, and Sam was giving me his "seriously?" look.

"I asked if you were good with the plan," Sam said.

"A, do I have a choice?" I asked. "B, what plan?"

He rolled his eyes and shot a scowl to Dean, who sighed.

"We're going to paint a trap," Sam informed me shortly, sounding aggravated by the fact he had to repeat himself. "You're going to hit the Strip and lure Desdemona to us."

"How do you know she'll follow me?" I questioned.

"You're not supposed to be up here, right?" He began, and I hesitantly nodded. "Don't you think she would find it interesting that you're not in the pit? Interesting enough to maybe follow you?"

"Follow me or ride me right back to Hell?" I grumbled.

It occurred to me that Desdemona might recognize my face, the sunken, smoky one I hid beneath Max's. It would certainly work, getting her to follow the demonized version of John Winchester. Only I worried it would work a little too well. That the plan would go off without a hitch, and she'd end up revealing my secret identity to my sons. Either way, I was fucked.

"For the record, I am not okay with this plan," I said, my severe unwillingness to act as bait temporarily overriding my vendetta against the angels.

"We'd do it," Dead said distantly, sounding almost sincere as he straightened his black t-shirt. "But I don't think she's going to come out and play if she sees us. We've rolled through here enough times. If she didn't come out then, there's no reason she would now."

"Smart girl," I muttered under my breath. I reached into the seat next to me and absently stroked Freya's head.

"Besides, you're—" Sam began, but I was quick to cut him off.

"Just a demon," I finished for him, rolling my eyes. "Got it, thanks."

"I was going to say you're the only one who can actually see Desdemona," Sam said with a faint smile. "But yeah, that too."

I gave Sam a cold stare as the pain of a hundred knives exploded in my chest.

"You know, I used to be someone," I mentioned through clenched teeth.

"And then you died and went to Hell, so," Sam argued without hostility or any interest in actually quarreling, and casually turned around to face the silver and sea-foam green diner.

Of all the things my boys had said and done in the past two days, it was Sam's indifference that stung the most. Arguing was all we ever really did when I was alive. He did it with passion, and he did it because, deep down, for some fucking reason, he cared. His disregard of me now just made everything feel more… real.

"Dude," Dean said with a mild crease in his brow. "Ixnay on the ell-hay." Sam raised a brow and shifted to face his brother. Dean cupped the right side of his mouth with his hand to hide his lips, and in a low tone said, "He sold his soul."

"You do know I can hear you, right?" I said, rolling my eyes.

"So?" Sam said to Dean, ignoring my comment.

"I just think we could empathize a little, that's all," Dean said with a shrug.

Sam sighed in annoyance and ran a hand through his long hair.

"I'm sick and tired of demons, Dean. I don't trust them, and in case you forgot, I still hate them and I thought you did too. No offense." He paused to shoot me a quick, semi-apologetic look. "A little offense."

"None taken," I said, folding my arms across my chest to indicate I was, despite my best efforts, mildly offended.

"Name one demon we've worked with that hasn't screwed us over at least once," Sam challenged Dean, whose brow creased in deep concentration. His face lit up temporarily and his lips parted to speak, but his expression quickly fell and he closed his mouth again as he realized that there had yet to be a demon who did not, at some point, fuck them over.

"If I may point out a small detail," I spoke up. I leaned forward and rested my arms along the back of the front seat, causing Sam to instinctively lean away from me. "I'm not really working _with_ you. You're kind of blackmailing me here. Any time you want to back out of that and let me get back to hunting, feel fucking free, because I assure you, I'm not thrilled the fucking Winchesters are risking my ass for a goddamn book."

Sam tilted his head as he pondered my rant. After a moment of thought he cracked the door open.

"You coming?" He called to no one in particular as he climbed out of the car and into the hot afternoon.

A soft groan slipped past my lips and I grudgingly opened the door with the sun-bleached army man stuck in the groove under the silver handle.

"Stay," I commanded Freya, who gave me a disappointed look as she dramatically slumped across the back seat. "Don't worry girl," I assured her, playfully brushing the top of her head with my hand. "We won't be stuck here much longer."

Dean and I climbed out of the Impala and, as we stepped out into the hot desert air, the familiar sound of Led Zepplin's _Ramble On_ began to play from the depths of Dean's pockets. Dean pulled out his phone, glanced at the screen and absently waved Sam and I on.

"Go on in," he stated, swiping his index finger along the bottom of the screen. "I gotta take this." He put the device to his ear and a tiny grin pulled at the corners of his lips. "Hey, where are you? _What_? Why?"

I turned and sluggishly followed Sam into the diner. The floors were well worn, and checkered in black and white squares of linoleum. The upholstery on the booths and the round stools that stood around a long white counter were the same sea-foam green as the establishment's exterior. Cold air blasted from overhead vents and clashed with the hot air that tried to drift out from the kitchen visible through a large, windowless opening. A greasy, meaty scent wafted throughout tiny restaurant; it smelled like a heart attack and it made my mouth water.

Sam led the way, choosing an empty table along a window that overlooked the parking lot and the busy intersection on which the diner stood. He slid into the booth and quickly busied himself with one of the laminated, double sided menus tucked between the thick window and the silver napkin dispenser. I took the empty seat opposite from him and sullenly stared across the off-white, faux marble table top at my son. He wasn't ignoring me, not entirely, but his demeanor was cold and rigid enough to tell me he wasn't exactly open to conversation, either.

"I can't believe we're wasting our time here," I mumbled grumpily as I gazed out the window at Dean, who casually paced around the Impala with his phone pressed against his ear.

"Yeah," Sam said with a heavy sarcasm. "Nourishment is a huge waste of time."

"Can't you just order something to go?" I grumbled. I restlessly drummed my thumbs against the table as Sam continued to read his menu.

"We could," he admitted without looking at me, his voice calm but cold. "But we don't really have anywhere to go until it gets dark, so there's not really any point. Unless you have somewhere you need to be?" He tore his eyes away from the menu long enough to shoot me a smirk.

"Apparently not until dark," I muttered sharply.

A busty waitress in a stiff white dress approached the table with a tired smile. She pulled a pad of paper and a pen from the pocket of her pink apron.

"What can I get you boys?"

I ordered a cup of coffee, and Sam ordered himself a salad, and a bacon cheeseburger for Dean. I wrinkled my nose at him as the waitress scurried away. He shot me a questioning look in return.

"Salad? My god, you're a fucking hippie."

Sam arched a brow at this, but clearly took no offense to the term that had long since lost its edge, insult wise. He remained silent until the waitress returned with a white mug of piping hot coffee, which she wordlessly set in front of me.

"Coffee?" he retorted. "Thought this was a waste of your time"

"Gotta order something if I'm going to sit here, right?" I asked. "It's called being polite."

Sam rolled his eyes.

"What?" I asked.

"Nothing," he replied. "I'm just not buying this whole 'nice demon' act you've got going on."

"It's not an act," I insisted. "Why don't you trust me?"

This finally provoked a reaction.

"If you know who we are, then you know why I can't trust you," Sam snapped, his tone bordering on combative. I had a sudden desire to goad him into a fight, to see that familiar passionate reaction. "Anyway, I thought you didn't care."

"I didn't," I replied. "But I'm beginning to second guess my chances of freedom if you don't trust me at least a little by the time this grimoire business is over and done with."

A tiny smile lifted at Sam's lips.

"You're smarter than most demons then," he acknowledged, offhandedly admitting he had no intention of letting me walk free. "Which just makes it harder for me to trust you."

I stared him down, feeling my jaw clench. I was caught, frustrated by my situation but strangely pleased with Sam's unwavering distrust for my kind.

"Your old man would have been proud of you," I commented.

That did it. I should have known it would have taken a sincere and innocuous remark to send him off the edge. He slammed a fist on the table, the sound resounding through the restaurant, causing the other customers pause in their conversations to stare at us. His jaw tightened as an angry, red flush rose across his cheeks.

"You don't get to talk about my dad," he spoke quietly but fiercely. "You don't know anything about him," he jabbed his index finger at me as the fury seemed to rise in him. "He's dead because of you bastards. Your kind killed _both_ of my parents, so don't sit there and pretend like you know shit about what my dad would feel right now."

I had finally gotten the rise from him I had been fishing for, but not the satisfaction. It wasn't like old times. It was nothing like our arguments used to be. His words were passionate, yes, but they were hateful, and it only reminded me that nothing I did or said would make me feel normal again.

This was my new normal.

The bell attached to the diner's door jingled as it swung open and Dean stepped inside. He strolled towards us, the cool breeze of the air-conditioning bringing a look of relief to his face. He cheerfully took a seat beside Sam.

"Just talked to Cas," he announced, and I couldn't quite tell if he didn't notice the thick tension between Sam and me, or if he simply didn't care.

"Where is he?" Sam was quick to ask, still a little shaken from the brief but intense tongue-lashing he had just given me.

"Fucking Panama," Dean said with a disappointed breath. He perked up when he spied my untouched coffee, and reached across the table. "You drinking that?" He asked, not waiting for a response before helping himself. He took a slow sip and his face lit up, suddenly remembering something.

" _Panama_?!" Sam echoed in disbelief as Dean awkwardly attempted to extract something from his back pocket. "What the hell is Cas doing in _Panama_?"

"Following a lead," Dean replied as he produced a small silver flask. He unscrewed the cap and carefully poured what appeared to be whisky into the hot black liquid. "I told him we'd let him know how tonight plays out with Desdemona."

"You think Crowley'd stash the grimoire down there?" Sam wondered out loud.

"I don't see why not," Dean said thoughtfully, tucking his flask safely away in his back pocket. He paused to take a sip of coffee. "I mean, we do kind of have a harder time getting across borders than we do sneaking in and out of literally all the afterlives."

"Yeah," Sam said with a nod.

"Wait," I spoke up, stuck on something Dean had said. "Cas? As in _Castiel_? That broken-winged, ate up motherfucker?"

Dean shot me an icy glower.

"Watch it," he said warningly, giving me the only inch of forgiveness he could muster when it came to putting down his celestial friend.

"Why is an _angel_ checking a lead for you?" My eyes narrowed and I folded my arms across my chest. "Why is this grimoire so important to you?"

Dean gave Sam a questioning glance, to which he responded with a disapproving look. Dean turned his gaze back to me, and quietly determined the level of trust I had earned in the last day and a half. He shrugged.

"The grimoire has a specific spell," Dean said with little hesitance, still far more trusting of me than his little brother. "A decoder spell. It can translate anything on the planet, including the angel tablet. We're helping Cas track it down so he can open Heaven back up."

"You're doing this… for the angels?" I slowly asked with a note of disgust.

"Well, we're doing to help _an_ angel," Dean admitted. "Why? Is that a problem?"

 _Fucking a right it's a goddamn problem._

I gritted my teeth and produced an exaggerated grin.

"Nope."


	8. Viva Las Vegas

The neon lights of the Las Vegas Strip burned into my eyes as a sea of jolly people rushed around me, drunk on gambling-induced adrenaline and fruity cocktails served with tiny paper umbrellas. The night sky was dark — as dark as any city sky could really get — but the city was as bright at day. Music and laughter cascaded from casinos and hotels, and clashed against the vibration of traffic like a wave blasting against a break wall. A hot, arid breeze carried the scent of sweat and gasoline with hints of chlorine and greasy food that mingled into one nauseating but intoxicating smell.

The plan was to search for Desdemona without making it seem like I was doing so.

"Make it look like you're on the run or something," Dean had recommended before I left him and Sam in the designated alleyway with a bright orange demon trap, and Freya (an arrangement none of us were thrilled with, but taking a hellhound for a walk down the Las Vegas strip was out of the question). "Try to blend in, but not too much."

Which is, essentially, what I did. I played blackjack at Bally's under golden ceilings. I strolled the elegant red floors of the MGM Grand and fed slot machines coin after coin. I drank whisky by the luxurious pools at the Tropicana, and threw red dice across a green felt craps table in the pyramid shaped Luxor. I repeated everything at Excalibur, New York New York, and the Monte Carlo. I pretended like I was having fun, while making it seem like I was trying to blend in with the masses. But I wasn't really blending in, and I wasn't really having fun.

Big surprise, right?

Personality aside, it was difficult to find anything fun about the circumstances. I was parading myself around under hundreds of security cameras in a crossroads demon's territory while sulking over the raw hatred that was festering in my gut. I maintained enough awareness to scan the faces in the masses of people that milled around in Hawaiian shirts and tacky visors, but not enough to truly see everything. I could hear my drill sergeant's voice screaming in my ear "distracted men are dead men", but I was too consumed to do anything about it.

Sam hated me. Dean trusted me, which I found as equally relieving as I found it unsettling. I desperately wanted to take my revenge on those bastard angels for what they had done to me, and the fact I was helping them only fed the fire that blazed within me. I felt like I was going to erupt in a hot fury in the middle of the Las Vegas Strip.

And then I saw her.

She was standing beside the ornate fountains outside the Bellagio in a slender red dress and a black fur coat. Her vessel had long, straight black hair, dark, almond shaped eyes and a delicate, round face. The real Desdemona, the demon beneath the attractive mask, was a lipless red vapor with sunken eyes and gnarled, stringy hair. And she was staring right into me.

I stopped dead in my tracks and gave her what I hoped appeared like a shocked expression. My eyes widened in pretend horror and I put in the effort to slowly back away in fake fear. I crossed the street with an exaggerated skittishness, and wound my way into the horde of people that shuffled along the sidewalk. I walked with a hurried step, trying to make it look like I was trying to loose her, but I walked slow enough to make sure she was following me.

I took a sharp right and continued my overly-nervous charade, making tracks down the sidewalk towards the alley where my sons and my hound were waiting for me. But I didn't go that far. Instead, I made a sudden right into an alley three blocks from my boys and their demon trap, and I slipped into the shadows of the empty alleyway. I peered over my shoulder as I walked down the dark pathway, and, unsurprisingly, discovered I was not being followed. When I turned my gaze forward, I was forced to stop short; Desdemona was standing right in front of me.

My eyes grew wide with pretend shock as a small, sly smile spread across her red lips.

"Shit," I cursed under my breath as I cautiously sidestepped her and slowly edged my way around her petit frame.

"Shit is right," she spoke sharply. She glowered as I gradually began to back away from her. "Can you imagine what Crowley's going to do to you?" she sternly questioned, following me with a slow, menacing step. Her red eyes locked onto mine and a devious smile crossed her lips as she backed me into a brick wall. "He's never going to let you die."

"You know who I am?" I questioned with a fearful voice.

"Of course I know who you are," she replied with a confident grin. " _John Winchester_."

I gulped.

"I have to admit, I'm impressed," Desdemona began to banter. "No one has ever eluded the legions of Hell before, not for one second. Yet you've managed to escape it. Twice."

"I _am_ John fucking Winchester," I replied coldly.

"Crowley is not going to take this lightly," she half warned, half bragged, practically giddy she had found me. "He's going to make an example of you."

Desdemona stared hatefully into my eyes and she flashed me a wicked grin as she clamped her right hand hard on my left shoulder. We stood like this for a good minute before she realized she couldn't transport me as she had intended. Her expression fell into a frustrated confusion, her brows creasing at me as a sly grin crept across my lips. Her gaze fell from me to the ground where she found the black demon trap I had painted hours before, the edge touching the wall I had been pressing myself against.

"Are you stupid?" she asked with a furious irritation and a violent fire behind her eyes. "You know you trapped yourself. With me."

"Oh no, sweetheart," I said. I leaned forward to whisper a snide, overly-confident comment into her ear; "I trapped _you_ with _me_."

The fury I had kept pent up within me all day was unleashing itself. It guided my hand as I grabbed her by her shoulders and thrust her up against the brick wall I had been pressing myself against. Her body collided with the red brick wall that cracked upon impact. Adrenaline coursed through my veins as my fingers closed around her throat and I held my Kurdish knife to her belly.

"Now," I whispered, leaning into her as she gasped. "I have some questions, and it would be in your best interest to answer them honestly."

"Ask your questions," Desdemona spat without fear. "I won't tell you shit."

I gradually pushed my knife into her stomach at an upward angle, making sure she felt every inch of my weapon. I put a hand over her mouth to stifle her screams as the skin around the blade sizzled and hot orange flickers of light webbed across her flesh.

"Where's Crowley?" I whispered into her ear. I carefully removed my hand from her lips to allow her to speak. She gasped in pain as she glared at me.

"Fuck you," she shakily spat.

I pushed the blade in a little further, and I tried like hell not to enjoy every bit of it.

"Where's Crowley?" I whispered again.

"How… stupid… do you think I… am?" she panted.

"Stupid enough to follow John Winchester into a dark alley," I whispered smugly. I drove the knife in a little deeper, carefully avoiding her vital organs. I wasn't trying to kill her. Not yet.

"Where. The fuck. Is Crowley. And his _fucking_ grimoire?"

A slow, shaky smile crept across her lips.

"Look at what you've become," she said with a weak sneer. "You're a monster, John Winchester. _And you're going to burn_."

I pulled my blade from her stomach and swiftly pressed the bloodied tip of it against her throat. I punctured her flesh ever so slightly, releasing a thick bead of blood that trickled down her neck and ran down her chest. Desdemona let loose a fleeting glimpse of fear in the form of a sharp gasp.

"Last chance," I warned.

"I hope Crowley force-feeds you the slaughtered remains of your children," she spoke through gritted teeth as a bitter smile twitched across her lips. "Go to Hell."

I slowly pushed my blade into her neck, and I watched with satisfaction as the familiar orange flicker ignited within her. The hot light illuminated the skeleton beneath her body as she stared into me with her face twisted in excruciating pain. I locked my eyes on hers and waited for the light to fade away before I jerked my weapon free of her delicate neck and carelessly allowed her to collapse at my feet.

 _You just killed another person_.

A frigid flood of numbness swelled inside me as I glanced down at the body lying at my feet. It wasn't really the fact that I had killed again that bothered me (which was also, in itself, worrisome). What unnerved me was how I, again, lacked hesitation. I didn't even think about it, not once.

 _Her body has probably been dead for years,_ I tried to convince myself as I pocketed the bloodied blade. I turned my back on the corpse and walked to the edge of the thinly painted trap where I stooped down and extracted a small bottle of water tucked safely in my jacket pocket. I poured it along the black paint, concentrating the spill to one half inch spot in an effort to break the circle just enough. The paint slowly began to chip and break away and, within a minute's time, I was walking free from the trap I had set.

It seemed like a lot of trouble to go through just to protect my identity, but I couldn't think of anything worse than Sam and Dean discovering exactly what had become of their father.

The realization of what I'd done and how I'd done it gradually began to sink in as I trudged away from the body Desdemona had been piloting and headed towards the street. A weighted guilt gnawed at my gut and trembled in my limbs. My chest tightened as I somberly limbered down the sidewalk.

This wasn't who I was.

 _It's not the person you_ _ **were**_ _. It's the monster you_ _ **are**_ _._

 _Fuck._

I had been a demon for well over five hundred years, in terms of Hell time. But I hadn't truly grasped what it was I had become, not until that moment. I had known it was bad, but I never dreamed I could ever be this… _disgusting_.

I tried to swallow my shame as I rounded a corner and sauntered down the alley where Sam and Dean were waiting in the shadows with their hands clutched tightly around their respective demon-killing instruments. They appeared tense, unhappy they had been left in Freya's company, despite the fact she was innocently laying in front of a blue dumpster several feet away from them. I arranged a casual expression on my face as I approached them, and loosened my posture. I tried to forget I was the thing I never wanted to become, the beast I hated more than anything in existence, and I lit myself a cigarette.

The rigid expression in Dean's face fell into a look of confusion as he watched a plume of white smoke escape my lips and trail behind me as I walked.

"Where's Desdemona?" Dean questioned, searching behind me for the demon who was supposed to be following me.

"Desdemona is dead," I replied with a smoky, nonchalant breath. "Three blocks that way." I lazily gestured to the right.

"Why is she 'three blocks that way'?" Sam shortly questioned.

"She recognized me," I supplied them with a vague truth, tiptoeing around the fact I had lured her there. "Threatened to take me to Crowley."

Sam exhaled a heavy, irritated sigh and rolled his eyes. He shook his head and bowed it in disappointment.

"Did she at least tell you where Crowley is?" Dean questioned, his tone slightly more forgiving than his brother's had been.

"I asked," I said. "But she seemed pretty adamant about not telling me."

"Great," Dean said, throwing his hands up in frustration. "Now we have to find another demon."

"I can arrange that."

The unexpected and uninvited voice came from just behind Sam and Dean. They whirled around to face a crossroads demon guised as a young, dark haired man in an expensive white suit. He flicked his wrists with minimal effort and sent Sam sailing to the left, and to Dean the right, pinning them each to a wall. A fierce rage blazed behind his eyes as he strode towards me, and I reached for my knife. I was quick, but he was faster; I barely had the Kurdish blade out of my pocket when he kicked it from my grasp with the sole of his patent leather shoe, and it clattered to the ground. My cigarette tumbled from between my lips as he clenched his fingers around my throat and pushed his face into mine.

"You killed Desdemona," he accurately accused. His jaw clenched as he stared me dead in the eyes. A look of enraged recognition crossed his face as he scowled at me through narrowed eyes. "I know who you are."

"So did… Desdemona," I gasped as I tried to pry his fingers from around my neck. "'S… what got… her killed."

I swung my left arm against his, trying to weaken his grasp, but his grip around my throat held fast. I swung my right fist into his face, but he didn't even flinch. I attempted to knee him in the gut, but he shook me like a rag doll and tightened his fingers, nearly crushing my esophagus.

That was when I noticed Freya slinking through the shadows behind him.

"You gonna try to take me to Crowley, too?" I tried to stall him to give Freya time to sneak up on him. I tauntingly flashed my black eyes at him, along with a prideful grin.

"Nope. I'm going to kill you," the demon growled threateningly.

"I'd like to see you try."

The demon — Desdemona's lover, judging by the fury he held — raised his left hand, readying it to strike me, when a savage growl rolled from Freya's throat. She pounced him before he had a chance to react, slamming into his body with such a force he lost his grip on me, as well as his hold on my boys, and tumbled pathetically to the hard ground below. A terrified yelp emitted from the his gaping mouth as Freya's lips curled to expose the sharp teeth that loomed over the demon's face. Freya snarled and snapped at him as she dug her claws into his chest and frantically began tearing him into bloody ribbons.

From the corner of my eye I caught Dean turning his head away in discomfort and disgust, the carnage reminding him of his own experience with hellhounds. Sam, on the other hand, watched what appeared to him like a body tearing itself apart as it squirmed and screamed in horror and pain. He watched not because he wanted to, but because he was looking for a way to jump in without receiving the sharp end of Freya's wrath in the process. That or, as it occurred to me later, he was trying to calculate exactly where Freya was so he could take her out along with the demon we were not expecting.

For a minute I just stood there, watching Freya as her jaws clamped around the demon's neck and she dragged him to the demon trap to keep him from smoking out. I cursed the red-haired demon we met in Baton Rouge, the one who told us about Desdemona. He had set us up, I was certain of it. He didn't mention this demon as a screw you to us for killing him. I tried not to consider the fact that this easily could have been avoided if I had bothered to set aside my burning rage for a few measly hours and actually focused on my surroundings. But it was easier and far less embarrassing to blame the bastard demon from Baton Rouge.

After I'd had my fill of cursing dead demons and watching the live demon writhing and gasping and bleeding, I stooped down and scooped up my blade. I ambled into the trap to where he was laying with his white suit drenched in red and torn to shreds. His chest had been ripped open to expose his ribcage, and his stomach was hemorrhaging dark blood. I withdrew a cigarette from my jacket pocket and casually lit it as the demon squirmed under Freya's teeth.

"Having fun?" I asked vaingloriously. I sucked in a deeply satisfying lungful of smoke and quickly exhaled it through the side of my mouth. "I'm going to cut you a deal," I said, speaking around the cigarette between my lips as I held up my blade for the demon to see. "You tell us what we need to know, and I will give you a quick death. Tell me to fuck myself, and I watch Freya tear you apart until I've smoked every last one of my cigarettes." I paused to flash him a wolfish grin. "And I just bought a new pack."

"D-damn you," the demon sputtered in a hoarse, muted voice. He coughed up a mouthful of blood and grimaced as Freya tightened her jaw around his neck. "Fucking… Winchesters."

I drew in another drag of smoke and nervously side-eyed my boys as they edged their way toward the trap. Their expressions were hardened and curious, but not suspicious. The comment had brushed by them without a second thought, and I exhaled a smoky breath of relief.

"Where's Crowley?" I asked, glancing back down to the demon. He glared up at me through narrowed eyes, and Freya clamped down even harder.

"M-Michigan," he stammered. "T-town called Traverse. Old asylum."

"Does he have the grimoire with him?" Dean gruffly questioned, and the demon vigorously nodded.

"Y-yes," he gasped.

"Thank you," I spoke down to the demon, who stared up at me with wet, pain filled eyes. "You've been very helpful."

"S-so glad I could help," the demon spat sarcastically through the blood that trickled from his lips at a steady rate. He watched me as I crouched down beside him, and positioned the tip of my blade against his chest. "C-Crowley's never going to l-let you d-die."

"Yeah," I casually said. "I heard that one."

I thrust my knife into his chest and, with a sick satisfaction, watched the light explode in his body. It crackled and sparked before it gradually dimmed and faded away, leaving a hollow corpse in its wake. I peered down at the mess of a body lying in a pool of its own blood, and I felt…

Nothing.

I didn't feel terrible, or guilty over the fact that I didn't feel guilty. I simply felt nothing.

 _What is happening to me?_

I stood upright and calmly pocketed my knife as I turned to face Sam and Dean. They stared at me with hardened expressions, their hands still gripped around their blades.

"What?" I asked, puffing lazily on my cigarette. "You boys gonna let me out?"

"That was kind of brutal," Sam commented in a scolding tone.

"He was just a demon," I snidely shot, and he narrowed his eyes at me.

"I meant your hellhound," he said coldly, and I rolled my eyes.

"You've got to be fucking kidding me," I muttered, more to myself than to Sam and Dean.

"I don't want it in the car," Dean said firmly, his voice deeper than normal in an attempt to mask his fear of Freya.

" _She_ just saved our asses," I heatedly pointed out. "S _he_ only does _that_ when _I_ am in trouble, and _we_ are a package deal."

Sam and Dean exchanged a long, contemplative stare.

"We don't have time for this," I snapped as they wordlessly debated their options, and calculated my worth to their mission. "We need to disappear. If you need me to help you get that fucking book, then let us out, or get the hell out of here and I'll get out of here myself."

Somehow.

They turned their backs on me, much like they had in the motel in Florida, and leaned close to privatize their discussion.

"We don't need him," Sam insisted. "We've gone up against Crowley before. This isn't anything we can't handle ourselves."

"Of course we can handle it," Dean agreed. "But Crowley is expecting us. He's not expecting a fucking demon hunter. Hunter demon?"

"Guys," I called above their hushed but still quite audible voices. "Seriously. Tick-tock."

They turned to face me again. Sam's face was rigid, his fingers still tightened around the hilt of his Kurdish blade as Dean gradually crouched down and used his long, silver angel blade to scratch away enough of the trap to break the seal.

I stepped free and brushed past Sam, flicking the smoldering stub of my cigarette to the ground with a reserved motion. He scornfully watched as I lit myself another cigarette, still clutching his demon blade in a silent protest to Dean's decision to keep me around. I pitched him a cocky smirk and said;

"Shotgun."


	9. Mystery

The world was dark in the early morning light under a thick blanket of menacing gray clouds. I could feel the moisture building in the air beyond the glass and steel of the Impala. The scent of the looming wetness cut through the dry heat, and a faint roll of thunder growled in the distance.

The world outside looked like how I felt on the inside. It was dark and foreboding, and it was building up to something terrible and unstoppable. Only, the storm outside would quench the parched earth, and eventually recede and give way to the sun and all would be happy and warm again. The storm inside of me would only satisfy the demon, the part of me I had been trying to keep at bay, and God only knew if I could recover from that.

I debated telling them who I was. I considered pulling my mask back and announcing my true identity to my sons before they sent me on another suicide mission. Before the tempest swept in and took away every last shred of John Winchester that I desperately clung to, and I really became the thing I despised. But I decided it was best to keep them in the dark, keep them blissfully unaware of what had become of their old man. Besides, they wouldn't believe me.

"Well, that's weird," Sam muttered out loud, shattering the thick silence that had been made uncomfortable by my very presence. He was sitting in the front passenger seat, despite my claim to the seat (although I never actually thought I would be welcome in the coveted spot), with his black laptop open and carefully balanced on his knees.

"What's weird?" I asked with a note of contempt, keeping my eyes on the dark gloomy skies and the rusty earth. "How do you have the fucking internet right now?"

Sam responded by pretending he didn't hear me, although the way his eyes narrowed, I could tell he had.

"Please don't tell me there's not an asylum in Traverse," Dean pleaded from his place behind the steering wheel. He took his eyes off the two-lane highway he was navigating to shoot Sam a disgruntled look.

"There is an old asylum," Sam said. "It was established in 1881, and shut down in 1989."

"Great," Dean said. "Sounds exactly like the kind of place Crowley would hole up. So what's weird?"

"The fact that it's not abandoned," Sam revealed.

"What?" Dean asked with a sharp look of confusion. I sat straighter in my seat and leaned forward in interest.

"Yeah," Sam nodded, his eyes still glued to the screen. "The Traverse City State Hospital actually has multiple buildings on site, and they've been slowly under restoration since about 2001. It looks like a lot of them are occupied."

"Occupied by what?" Dean asked, more confused than before.

Sam clicked his mouse and sat back, his eyes slightly widened.

"The buildings are used for residential and business purposes," he read from his computer screen. "Apartments and condos, restaurants, boutiques, coffee shops, a freaking winery, offices, a yoga studio–"

"I get it," Dean cut him off. "So what you're saying is that it's crowded."

"Yeah," Sam nodded.

"That doesn't seem like the kind of place Crowley would hang out," Dean said, looking between Sam and the road. "Which is why that is exactly where he is."

"The only problem is figuring out what part of the property he's hanging out in," Sam said as his fingers stroked the black keyboard.

"Check out the businesses," I suggested. Sam craned his neck back and shot me a cold glower, wordlessly telling me he hadn't asked for my help. "Maybe he's operating out of a restaurant or something," I continued anyway. "It's a vacation town, right? Get the tourists drunk and full and complacent and offer them their wildest dream come true for desert."

Sam sighed and turned around to face the road.

"You know, that's not a bad idea," Dean casually said. "Check out the winery, dude. I bet they get tons of people wasted."

Sam fixed his gaze on the computer once more and began typing.

"How'd you know it's a vacation town?" he casually asked without looking up from his task.

I paused to contemplate my response. Northern Michigan was a common vacation destination for folks in Illinois. I had never gone myself, but most of my childhood neighbors and friends would visit for weeks at a time in the summer, and the names of the cities and towns had been burned into my mind.

Of course, I didn't want to clue them in to my home state or past human history, so I didn't mention this. And so I replied with;

"How did you _not_ know it's a vacation town?"

Sam ignored me, and instead stared thoughtfully at the screen in front of him. His brows folded in curiosity and a light "huh" emitted from his lips.

"What?" Dean asked impatiently as he picked up a paper coffee cup from the cup holder and carefully took a slow sip.

"Nothing," Sam shook his head. "I mean, at first glance, none of these places scream Crowley. But there is a business called — get this – GLASS Paranormal and Ghost Removal."

Dean choked and sputtered on his coffee as a hearty chuckle rolled up from his chest.

"Are you shitting me?" he asked with amusement, swiping away the coffee that dribbled down his chin with the back of his hand.

"I am not," Sam said. He clicked the mouse a couple of times and a tiny, amused grin tugged at the corner of his mouth. "Their web page is pretty bare. It says." He paused and tried to stifle a snicker. "Got ghosts? Call Miss. Torie."

"Miss. Torie?" Dean echoed questioningly before he got the joke and he rolled his eyes. "Mystery."

"Yep," Sam said, still mildly entertained.

"I don't think Crowley's hanging out with a ghost chaser named 'Mystery'," Dean said.

"No," Sam agreed with a nod. "But if anything weird is going on, I bet she would notice."

"Please," I scoffed, rolling my eyes. "Paranormal investigators wouldn't notice 'paranormal' if it bit them on the ass."

Sam ignored my bitter comment and shifted in his seat, careful to keep his laptop level as he fished his smartphone out of his jeans pocket. He dialed the number listed on the webpage, and turned the speaker on. He held the slender, black device between Dean and himself, and we quietly listened and waited for "Miss. Torie" to pick up.

"Hello?" A feminine voice filled the Impala.

"Uh, hi," Sam spoke up. "Is this GLASS Paranormal?"

"Yeah," the voice said. "What's up?"

"I have a question for you, and it might sound a little odd."

"I'm sure it will, honey," the voice said in a tone that bordered on sarcasm, though not in an unfriendly way.

"Um, right." Sam paused to glance back down at his computer. "Your office is located at the Traverse City State Hospital, right?"

"Yeah. I mean, it's technically called The Village or something now, but yeah."

"Have you noticed anything… unusual there recently? Like, flickering lights?"

"Uh, yeah dude," the woman's voice returned, as if it should have been obvious. "That's kind of what happens in haunted buildings."

Sam and Dean exchanged a look of curious beguilement.

"What about odd smells?" Sam prodded as thunder grumbled in the distance. "Like, rotten eggs or sulfur?"

The line went silent, and, after a few seconds, the phone beeped to indicate the call had been disconnected.

"Well that's not suspicious," Dean said sarcastically as Sam redialed the number. It took him a couple of tries before the woman would answer her phone again.

"Quit calling here," she said shortly, and swiftly hung up.

Sam sighed, but remained persistent and tried again.

"I fucking mean it," she snapped when she answered. "Tell Crowley I passed his idiotic test and leave me the fuck alone."

"Hold on a second!" Sam quickly called, hoping to keep her on the line. "I don't work for Crowley."

"You don't?"

"No. My name's Sam. I'm a hunter—"

"A hunter?" The woman's voice cut him off. "Well, that's just fucking great." There came a long pause and Sam had to check his phone to make sure he was still connected. "Look, pal," the voice said at last, her words laced with a sorrowful irritation. "If you don't leave me alone, you're gonna get me killed. I'm hanging up, and I'm blocking your number. Do not call me again."

Sam's phone beeped, and the three of us sat with baffled expression in the Impala half a country away.

"What the hell was that?" Dean asked no one in particular. "What did she mean by that?"

"I don't know," Sam said, just as bewildered as Dean. "But I'm starting to think she's not the typical paranormal investigator."

"You think she's in trouble?" Dean asked.

"I don't know," Sam admitted, but the concern that gently laced itself across his face said he suspected something similar. "But it sounds like we're headed in the right direction."

* * *

"This place is creepy."

Dean stared up at the giant, four story Victorian building with an unsettled look. The nobel asylum was elegant and clean, and far less eerie than any of the former institutions I had run across. The off-white bricks wore a fresh coat of paint, and the black, peaked roofs had been re-shingled. All the windows were not only intact, but extraordinarily clean, so clean they reflected perfectly the deep blue skies and the fluffy white clouds that lazily sailed across them. Illustrious old oak trees stood proudly alongside strong maples in a cluster on the front lawn, and, on the other side of the small, gravel parking lot, sat an open field of lush green grass.

We stood at a fork in the narrow road that led up to the former asylum, studying the long building we had to infiltrate. Dean had parked the Impala a mile or so away on a shady residential street, and we had walked to the place the sign called The Village at Grand Traverse Commons. If Crowley was there — and we were certain he was — the car would have tipped him off in an instant. And if the Impala didn't alert them of my boys, the hellhound sitting in the back seat would have alerted them of me.

"This is actually the least creepy asylum I've seen," Sam said, challenging his brother's statement as his eyes swept over the historical landmark.

"I mean, it _looks_ nice," Dean added, squinting up at the four-story building. "But it still has that old, crazy feel to it. And people live here?" He paused and glanced over to Sam. "How much you wanna bet it's haunted?"

"Considering 'Mystery' already told us it is, I wouldn't bet against it."

I lit myself a cigarette and inhaled the poisonous smoke with a desperate breath. It had been a long couple of days stuck in the backseat of the Impala, and Sam's reserved hostility hadn't helped. It was relieving to finally be out of the car, and at the right destination. My part in the grimoire affair was coming to an end, and, soon, I would get to return to hunting things that wouldn't try to drag me back to Hell.

As soothing as it was to know my work with my sons was about to come to an end, it was also deeply disappointing. I hadn't truly understood how much I missed them until I had begun traveling with them, even under the circumstances. I may have abandoned my mission for penance when the revelation of what the angels had done to me came to light, but I knew I couldn't stay with them. Even if they did know who I was – or, rather, used to be – they wouldn't want me hanging out with them. I was, after all, a demon.

I tried to shake the regret that grew like a weed in my gut. I couldn't afford to get distracted again. Not here, not with Crowley so close.

"According to the website," Sam began with his gaze between the grand building and his phone. "Mystery's office is in Building 50. Which should be this building here."

He pointed straight ahead at the building we had been eyeing.

"How many buildings are there?" Dean asked.

"There should be four more former patient wards behind here," Sam said, idly motioning towards Building 50. "A couple of them are still completely abandoned. Well. Un-renovated."

"Let's go check 'em out," Dean said. He began strolling across the street, motioning for Sam to follow. "Maddox, you take Building 50. Find out what Mystery knows, and see if she's in trouble."

"Yes, I heard the plan the first time," I called as I walked directly towards the building while Sam and Dean took the sidewalk around.

"This time," Sam scoffed loud enough for me to hear. I sighed in embarrassment and hung my head as I lumbered to the set of simple glass doors that seemed tiny and out of place on such a grand and polished structure.

The inside of Building 50 was tidy and clean, and smelled faintly of lavender and garlic. The walls were mostly old, but well-tended red brick which proudly displayed paintings of landscapes and waterscapes that danced under a pleasantly dim light. A half-flight of stairs directly in front of me led down to a row of boutiques, shops and restaurants, while another short staircase ascended to the second floor just to my left. I took the stairs up and wandered down the wide, naturally lit corridor past rows of offices until I found another staircase and I took it to the third floor.

I wandered this corridor a little slower than I had the first, carefully reading numbers and names painted on the frosted glass windows of each door I passed. A vague scent of sulfur found my nose as I neared the center of the wide hall; I was getting close.

I stopped short at the door marked "G.L.A.S.S. Paranormal & Ghost Removal" in bold, black sticker letters, half of which were curling and fraying at the edges. The window was too thick and too frosted to tell if anyone was inside, but when I knocked an annoyed voice responded with a short "what?" and I let myself in.

The office was small, smaller than an average hotel room, and cramped. An overstuffed black leather couch sat along the brick wall on the left, facing a closet door on the right wall. On one side of the couch sat a weathered, antique table, and on the other a black mini-fridge that supported a white microwave and a small, black coffee maker. Two decent sized speakers sat on either side of a cheap, pinewood desk that had been placed in front of the tall, narrow window along the far wall, set so the woman sitting behind it was facing the door.

The woman Sam and Dean had been calling Mystery peered up from a silver laptop with giant, round eyes the same color as the sky. They were outlined in heavy black makeup that made her lashes stand out and made her eyes look electric and intense. Her vibrant, aquamarine hair was pin straight and long, falling just past her chest, with her bangs combed flat over her forehead. She wore a solid black tank top that displayed a collection of colorful ink embedded forever along her arms; the left arm was covered in what looked like a page straight from a comic book with panels and word bubbles, while the right was covered in stars in a multitude of sizes, arranged to give the appearance that they were falling from her shoulder to be caught in a pile at her wrist. Another tattoo had been drawn across the left side of her chest over her heart, something that looked like a name laced within the symbol for infinity, but her top covered it just enough to make it unreadable.

She was small, but her exterior was tough and, had I not been an ex-marine/hunter/demon, I might have found her intimidating. As I examined her round face, I realized she was actually kind of pretty. At least, she would be were it not for her wildly colored hair and extensive tattoos.

A sly smile spread across her full, pink lips as she watched me enter the tiny office space, and she quickly pulled her laptop to a close to give me her full attention.

"Well hello, Steve Rogers," she said with a suggestive tone, her eyes sweeping over me with interest.

"Um, my name is Maddox," I awkwardly corrected her.

The smile on Mystery's face widened into a look of amusement.

"You mean you're not Captain America?" she said sarcastically.

"I'm afraid not," I shook my head. "I only made it to corporal."

Her smile widened even still, seemingly delighted by our casual banter.

"Please, come in," she motioned for me to step forward. "Shut the door, would you?"

I did as she requested, quietly latching the door closed before I strolled towards her.

"What can I do for you, Maddox?" she asked with a sweet voice that clashed with her rough-and-tough style.

"Actually, I was wondering if there was anything I might be able to do for you," I told her as I took a seat in the un-sturdy wooden chair that sat across the desk from her.

"Oh?" she asked, pleasantly intrigued. She flashed me a seductive smile as she leaned forward slightly to expose her cleavage to me. "I bet I can think of something."

"That's… not quite what I had in mind," I admitted, taken somewhat aback by her brazen flirtations.

"No?" she asked with an exaggerated pout. "That's good." She dropped her tone and said in a voice barely above a whisper, "Because that's not exactly what I had in mind, either."

Before I could blink or have time to consider what she could have possibly meant, she was steadily aiming a sawed-off shotgun at my chest with her right hand.

"I was thinking you get the fuck out or I'll pump you so full of salt you'll be able to taste it in every meat suit you jump into."


	10. More Mystery and a Massacre

A cold and fierce expression settled across Mystery's brow as she aimed her weapon at me with an unwavering hand. I debated lying, telling her she was mistaken and that I wasn't a demon, but, judging by the fiery guise she expertly wore, lying would likely result in me getting shot. So I gave her a tiny smile and softly sighed.

"How'd you know?"

"You're wearing a jacket, dude," she pointed out my attire. "It's ninety fucking degrees outside."

"Nice observation," I gave her a sincere compliment as I warily eyed her gun.

"Get out," she said, moving her finger threateningly along the trigger. "And tell Crowley if he sends one more fucking demon down here, I'll assume he's broken our deal and I'm calling every hunter I know."

"I'll leave," I calmly assured her. "But before I do, you should know that I don't work for Crowley."

Mystery arched a brow as a roguish smile twitched at the right corner of her mouth. She pointed the shotgun away from me and discharged a single round that splattered the brick wall to my left in a spray of salt and flecks of red stone.

"You missed," I casually observed as she dramatically pumped the fore-end on her shotgun and returned its aim on me.

"Did I?" she said. She straightened her posture and gave me a confident smirk. At first I thought it had been a warning shot, a hostile way of telling me she didn't believe me. I thought this as I waited for her to say something, until a set of footsteps echoed down the hall and stopped short just outside the door behind me.

"Everything okay in there, mon amour?" a deep, French-accented voice rolled into the room. Mystery fixed her eyes on me so intensely, for a moment I couldn't tell what intimidated me more; the salt-loaded shotgun aimed at my chest or her. And then I realized what was going on; the voice beyond the door belonged to a demon.

My muscles tensed and my breath halted. I clenched my fingers into fists as I fought against instinct, screamed at myself not to reach for my Kurdish blade. Revealing that I was armed would, at best, get me shot, and at worst, it would get me shot _and_ hauled off to Crowley.

"Fucking ghosts, Damien," Mystery barked a convincing lie, her irritated voice clashing with the pleased look that had settled on her face. "It's always fucking ghosts."

"Do you need help, ma chère?" Damien's voice called, and Mystery cringed at the notes of affection.

"No, Damien, the ghost hunter does not need help with a ghost," she called, never taking her eyes off of me. "Although, since you're here, does the name 'Maddox' mean anything to you?"

"Ahh... no, I cannot say it does," the voice said. "Why do you ask? Are you sure you do not need assistance?"

Mystery eyed me questioningly, wordlessly asking whether or not she should invite the demon inside. My jaw tightened and I slowly shook my head, silently begging her not to tell Damien I was there.

"Just wondering," Mystery called. "You can fuck off now."

"Are you sure?" Damien asked.

"I mean, I do have another round loaded up, so if you were planning on shitting margaritas later, by all means, come inside."

A long and horrible silence passed, and, for a minute, I thought Damien might actually let himself in. Not that I wouldn't be able to take him. But taking down Damien would make a lot of noise, and I would be forced to improvise my way to the grimoire and, inevitably, be seen by Crowley.

"I think that I will come back later," Damien decided at last and shuffled back down the hall. The tension in my muscles eased, and a long, inaudible breath of relief passed through my lips.

"You'd better fucking not!" Mystery yelled before letting loose a low, frustrated growl.

"Boyfriend?" I teased, and she shot me an icy glower.

"He wishes," she said as her face curved into a look of disgust. "So." Her posture relaxed, but she kept her weapon level with my chest. "You don't work for Crowley. Tell me, Maddox, why are you here?"

"I'm a hunter," I informed her, something that provoked her to raise a brow. "And I'm here to help you." I paused and glanced to the gun. "I think."

"How are you a hunter?" Mystery shot another question. "And why do you think I'm in trouble?" She paused as a light switched on behind her eyes and an annoyed realization formed across her face. "You've got to be shitting me," she said in a half whisper. "You work with that Sam guy, don't you?"

"It's… complicated," I said. "But yes, Sam sent me here to see if you were okay."

"And to debrief me, right?" she guessed, narrowing her eyes at me as she spoke. "You want me to tell you all about Crowley and where to find him."

I gave her a thin smile.

"It would save me some time," I calmly nodded.

"Well, friendo, you're out of luck," she said with a false sorrow behind her breath. "Because I'm not in trouble, and I'm not telling you shit. The deal I have with Crowley is I keep quiet about his operation, and he leaves me alone. So if you want to rescue me, for the love of fuck, get out before you get me killed."

I sighed.

"Believe me, I'd like to," I told her. "Unfortunately, I can't leave until I've retrieved something."

"Can't or won't?" Mystery challenged.

"Can't."

Mystery quietly considered what I had told her, and her expression relaxed into something slightly less bitter as she casually leaned back in her chair.

"Why can't you?" she wanted to know. "And don't give me the 'it's complicated' bullshit."

"Crowley doesn't know I'm topside," I gave her the vague and abridged version of my story. "My… _friends_ threatened to tell Crowley if I don't help them get something he has."

"So they sent you into Crowley's lair?" Mystery scoffed, her expression somewhere between disbelief and boredom. "Some awesome friends you have." She paused. "Why even bother?"

"Why even bother with what?"

"I mean, you're pretty fucked either way, right?" she said with a shrug. "Why bother getting close to Crowley? Why not get the fuck outta dodge and hole up somewhere before your 'friends' tip him off?"

"I've run from a lot of things in my time," I admitted. "But a fight ain't one of them. This way, I've at least got a small chance of walking away somewhat unnoticed. Besides, it's for a." I paused and nearly choked on the words that pained me to say. "Good cause," I finished through clenched teeth.

Mystery pondered this for a moment as she adjusted her grip on her gun.

"What kind of 'good cause'?" she half asked, half demanded.

"It's for the angels," I explained without enthusiasm, unsuccessfully keeping the disdain from rising to my voice. Mystery gently lifted her brows in bewilderment as she quietly considered what I had told her. She studied the sincerity in my demeanor and let loose a long sigh when she determined I was telling the truth.

"In that case, I'm fucked either way too, aren't I?" she said with a sarcastic smile. She shifted uncomfortably in her seat, visibly unsettled by the situation she had been sucked into simply by being in the wrong place at the wrong time. To a certain degree, I could empathize with her, and I offered her an encouraging smile.

"Listen," I spoke empathetically. "You tell me what I need to know, I'll keep you safe."

Mystery scowled in what appeared to be distrust.

"I promise," I solemnly vowed. It surprised me, the kind sincerity and protection I offered her. It was the kind of thing old me used to say to people, the kind of thing old me used to do. And it was nice to see that ray of light in the unfolding darkness. It was nice to know I wasn't a total monster.

Yet.

"Yeah, I doubt that," she grumbled in disbelief as she placed her gun on the desk, but kept her hand securely on the stock. "Despite what I know about demons and the fact that every instinct in my body is screaming at me to shoot you in the face…" Mystery paused and let out a heavy sigh. "I guess I'll help you. Seeing as how it's for good, and I'm already fucked, thank you very much."

I gave her an appreciative smile she returned with another frown.

"I'm looking for a grimoire," I said, prompting a look of recognition to flash across her face.

"Gnarly looking leather book?" she half asked, half stated. "Weird symbol burned on the cover?"

"You've seen it?" I asked, and she nodded.

"It was on Crowley's desk," she replied. "Up on the fourth floor. I don't think I was supposed to see it. He got a little weirded out about it and tried to cover it up with a handkerchief. Of course, this was a few weeks ago. Whether or not it's still there is anyone's guess."

"Crowley's keeping it close to him," I said. "As long as he's here, so's the grimoire."

"Well, he's not here all the time," Mystery said.

"Good," I said. "I just need the book, and I'd prefer if Crowley didn't see me take it."

Mystery's head tilted upwards suddenly as her eyes darted to the ceiling and her expression turned thoughtful.

"That could work," she muttered distractedly to herself.

"What?" I felt forced to ask when she didn't elaborate.

"Crowley usually takes off for a while after eleven," she stated. "I could give you my key to the building. Come back around 11:30. I'll blast some music so the other demons don't hear you coming."

"I would appreciate that," I told her. "But I think you'd be safer elsewhere."

"If I'm shooting my agreement with Crowley to hell, I might as well help as much as I can," Mystery said with a calm defensiveness. "Anyway, I'm usually here blasting music around then. It would probably seem more suspicious if I wasn't here blaring rock and roll."

"Fair enough," I replied.

With her left hand she pulled the top drawer of her desk open and extracted a heavy brass key. She hesitantly leaned forward to pass it to me, but stopped short before I could take it from her.

"You'd better not be fucking with me," she warned, jabbing a finger at me. "Because if you are, and you get me killed, I will haunt the fuck out of you."

"That's not how that works," I informed her something I was confidant she already knew.

"Yeah, we'll fucking see."

* * *

I returned later that night with Freya and, thanks to Mystery, a good idea of what to expect. The outside of the building was lit in a faint yellow glow that contrasted with the darkness inside and intensified the eerie feel the place retained. Deep shadows cut through the white light of the nearly full moon that hung in the sky over head, carving a path for Freya and me to slink through unnoticed. I should have been at least a little nervous, sneaking around the building that housed around two dozen demons, including their king. I should have felt some kind of fear to a certain degree. But I didn't. I was calm. Too calm.

The calm before the storm.

Then again, perhaps I did feel a bit of fear. I wouldn't have told Sam and Dean to hang back if I was completely lacking in it. Only, I couldn't tell if I was trying to protect them from the twenty-something demons that lurked inside, or if I was trying to shield them from what I knew I was about to do. Even if they never found out who I was, they didn't need to see the thing I tried to pretend I wasn't.

I wondered, as I quietly unlocked the back door and slipped inside the building behind Freya, if killing a few dozen demons would quench my thirst for revenge, or if it would only fuel it. Would it put me at ease, or would it make me more of a demon? Was helping Sam and Dean obtain a stupid book worth the potential fallout?

 _They're demons_ , I reminded myself as my fingers wrapped themselves around the bone hilt of my Kurdish blade. _Killing demons is never a bad thing._

 _Killing people is_ , I mentally argued with myself, cautiously treading the dark and empty halls.

 _The people are probably already dead,_ I tried to make myself feel better about the sins I had yet to commit. _Sam and Dean need that book, and you need to keep your face hidden. There's no other way around it._

 _I could just not kill them._

 _That's not going to get you far._

I silently toed my way up the open staircase to the second floor. Freya walked beside me, her body rigid and crouched low to the ground, softly treading across the linoleum floors as quietly as possible. We tiptoed through patches of moonlight that spilled through giant windowpanes and past office doors until we reached the second set of stairs at the end of the hall.

My heart began to race as we gradually ascended the staircase to the third floor. It wasn't the slew of demons I knew were patrolling the wide hallway that caused my heart rate to spike. Rather, it was the adrenaline building in my veins and hammering against my chest. I wasn't just ready for a fight; I craved it.

 _That's a bad, bad sign._

As planned, the loud sound of music cued up and flooded the third floor hallway with electric guitars and a fast beat — Iggy Pop's _Lust For Life_ – and a giddy, wolfish grin spread across my lips.

 _Why are you smiling?_

 _Because this next part's gonna be fun._

I shoved the guilt down as quickly as it arose. I didn't have time to dwell on the things I was about to do, or get philosophical about right versus wrong or how I felt. I had a book to grab and some chains to break.

I stepped boldly into the dim light of the third floor corridor, brandishing my blade for everyone to see. There were eight of them there in the hallway, each standing guard in a casual manner, all men wearing black suits and matching ties. Their eyes quickly found me and they stared with open mouths, flabbergasted by my unexpected presence. Shock and confusion filled their expressions as they looked between me, Freya, and my knife.

"Which one of you son's of bitches is gonna tell me where I can find that goddamn grimoire?" I asked with a loud growl and a savage smile. I could feel my eyes flash black, an act I couldn't stop, not even if I wanted to.

"Mon Dieu!" a dark haired demon said as his eyes grew wide, and I recognized his voice as Damien's. The way he pointed at me, it was if I were a ghost. "I know who you are!"

"Do you?" I asked with an air that teetered on the edge of amusement. "You know what that means?"

Damien shook his head and the others watched with unease as I took a tenacious step forward.

"It means you're first." I paused to watch the demons spin around and glance between each other with looks of wild uncertainty. I had clearly surprised them, just as Dean was confident I would. I could feel a savage grin pull at my lips and I yelled a simple command;

"Get 'em, girl!"

Freya tore off down the hall, straight for the demon closest to us. I watched her pounce upon the brown haired demon, who let out a horrible shriek as she took him down and sunk her teeth into his neck.

 _"Here comes Johnny Yen again,"_ the lyrics belted as I marched forward with an unwavering confidence and a hot rush, the kind of rush a junkie might get before scoring a much needed fix. I directed my gaze on Damien, who was still so shocked he did little to fight against me as I drove my blade into his chest. The orange light exploded within him and I swiftly removed my blade from his flesh before he could crumple to the ground. I swirled around to see the six remaining demons had found their courage, and were advancing upon me with a bold fury. Freya leapt away from the first demon she had taken down, and charged at two more, successfully taking them both down in a heap of flailing limbs and gnashing teeth. I fought the other four alone, easily ducking fists and blocking kicks. The song was barely half over by the time I'd slain all four of them, and my attention turned to the demons that lay quivering in agony on the floor.

"Now," I spoke above the music as I looked between them. "Which one of you ate up mother fuckers is going to tell me where I can find that goddamn grimoire?"

At first they said nothing as the music reverberated against the walls and pulsed against their skulls.

"Upstairs," croaked the brown haired demon, the demon Freya had taken down first. He was sprawled out in a pool of his own blood, writhing in a pain so intense he couldn't focus on smoking out. "Crowley has it upstairs on a bookshelf," he sputtered through a mouthful of blood.

The other demons — two twenty-somethings with dark blond hair, propped in a slouching position against the brick wall — shot him a dirty look and hissed in disapproval.

"Fuck you," the brown haired demon spat. "I'm not dying for this bullshit."

"Thank you," I said as I inched towards him. I crouched down beside him, and sunk the Kurdish blade into his stomach. "But I didn't say I was going to spare you," I whispered, watching with a sense of satisfaction as the light within him flickered and faded away.

A horrible sound emitted from behind me, resonating like a hundred souls screaming into a violent gale. I twisted my head around in time to watch the thick black smoke as it fled the blond men they had been possessing. I stood abruptly, clutching my weapon as Freya snapped up at the smoky mess, but there was nothing we could do. They were gone, off to find new bodies. Whether or not they would return, I didn't know, but I was foolishly confident they wouldn't be able to find bodies close enough to Crowley to tell him I was there. I was also confident they had not recognized me, but not enough to prevent me from cursing my luck that they had gotten away.

What happened next came in a blur, like a red dream in fast forward. And, like a dream, I don't remember much of what happened. I recalled Iggy Pop gradually fading and another upbeat, punk rock song that cued up as I met a large group of demons guarding the stairwell that led up to the fourth floor. I would like to think the distortion in memory can be blamed on the surge of adrenaline that washed throughout my very being, but I know, deep down, it wasn't that. It was a blind rage, a rabid hunger for the carnage I delighted myself in. The carnage that got me drunker with each drop of blood I spilled.

Fucking demons.

I do remember vaguely the gist of what I had done. I had made my way through the demons on the stairs, and a few more at the door marked Crossroads Agency in fine gold and black lettering. I cleared out the vast and elegant but eerie office suite, and Freya chased the few who fled down the hall.

Everything came back into focus when I found the grimoire. Just as the brown haired demon had promised, the old leather-bound spellbook was tucked between a collection of ancient books in a wide, black bookcase that stood behind a lavish, black oak desk. It was easy to spot, even in the dim candlelight that faintly illuminated the room. It's spine was weathered terribly, and it's pages deeply yellowed. When I pulled it free from its neat little place between two green-covered books, I studied the cover to see that it bore the archaic symbol – a triangular shape that overlapped with something that could have possibly been a crescent sun and an arrow. A deep breath of relief prematurely worked its way from my lungs and out my lips.

And then I turned around.

A man with dark hair and matching eyes stood with a daunting air in the shadows between a pair of brick columns. His posture was straight and proud, yet somehow casual, his black suit sharp and immaculate. He wore a tiny, insincere smile as his eyes narrowed slightly, and a disappointed but entertained expression creased across his forehead.

"You," he spoke as he eyed me with interest. "Are not who I was expecting."

I warily stared at him through narrowed eyes and my grip on the bloodied blade I held in my right hand tightened. I clutched the grimoire with my left, forgetting it was no longer important to me. Not now that Crowley had seen me.

"I was expecting the Winchesters, but this…" He trailed off momentarily, his eyes locked on me, the real me, the thing that was piloting Max's skeleton. The right corner of his lip curved in an insincere half smile. "This is quite a surprise." He squinted, searching for a hint of recollection in my true face. "I don't know you. How do I not know you?" He paused and he stared into me, ravenously trying to put a name to my blackened, smoky face. "Then again, you do look familiar, don't you? Not from Hell. No. Someplace else. But where, and when?"

I didn't respond, and I didn't move. I stood frozen before Crowley, praying to the god that had long since forsaken me that he wouldn't recognize my face. And just when I felt myself relax, just when I thought my true identity was safe, a spark of recognition flashed across Crowley's eyes. His lips curved into a wide, nefarious smile.

"Well, well," he said with a note of heinous delight. "If it isn't John Winchester."


	11. Demon Trapped

Crowley did a decent job of pretending I hadn't rendered him speechless, but the truth was that I had. I could see the gears in his mind turning behind his eyes, searching for the right thing to say. Something smug, something suave and offensive.

"How the mighty have fallen," he said at last, and he took a single step out of the shadows. "Literally," he added with a roguish smirk. "And becoming a demon all on your own." He gave a dramatic pause for effect. "I've seen a lot of demons born out of torture, but never one that came from self-torment. That must have taken some time."

I remained silent as I shot him a glare. For a few seconds, I contemplated hurling my knife at him, but that wouldn't work. He would teleport away before the blade could find him, and I would be disarmed for long enough to give Crowley a good shot at killing me, or worse; capturing me.

 _Where the hell are you, Freya?_

"Tell me, John," the demon king went on. "How did you manage to elude the legions of Hell?"

"Wasn't that hard," I growled, underplaying my ordeal.

Crowley raised a brow in disbelief.

"How, pray tell, did you manage to escape?" he wanted to know, but I didn't reply. Realization struck him and he nodded knowingly. "Ah," he said, as if I had supplied him with an answer. "Bram. I was wondering where he had gone off to. I presume you were also responsible for Desdemona and Cyrus?"

I stared at him through narrowed eyes and clenched my jaw as my fingers tightened around the hilt of my knife. A shrewd smirk found its way across Crowley's lips as he eyed my weapon with amusement. He opened his suit jacket to unsheathe the long, silver blade — an angel's blade — stored in an inner pocket. He held it up for me to see, boastfully eyeing its sharp edges.

"Mine's bigger," he said, almost playfully. He pointed it at me in a manner more casual than it was threatening, despite the blaze of fury that burned behind his eyes when he looked at me. "The things I'm going to do to you."

"You want me?" I boldly challenged. I lifted my blade and stood ready for a fight. "Come and get me."

Crowley flashed me a devilish grin and took a slow, fearless step towards me. His demeanor was relaxed and casual, too casual for someone who had just been challenged to a fight. His suspiciously calm disposition alone was enough to send a shiver trailing down my spine, but his smile was mischievous. It was delighted and nasty, and telling of the complex web I had unwittingly walked into.

"It seems I already have you," he smugly informed me. His gaze turned down to the book still clutched in my left hand. I quickly dropped it and, the instant the book left my hand, a hot pain scorched my forearm. I tugged desperately at my jacket sleeve, pulling it up in time to see an intricate, Norse-looking symbol burn itself into my flesh. My heart stopped when understanding found me.

"The grimoire was a setup," I said in a low gasp, more to myself than to Crowley.

"Very good," the demon king mockingly praised as he continued to take dramatic steps forward.

"There is no real grimoire, is there?" I asked, glancing back up to him.

"That is _technically_ a grimoire," he said. "A worthless book of harmless spells any simpleton with an herb garden could cast. The spell your wayward sons are searching for does not, to my knowledge, exist, and if it does, it bloody well isn't in any grimoire." He paused when he reached the black oak desk, the only thing that separated him from me. "That was intended for Sam and/or Dean. Preferably Sam. I still rather like Dean."

It was difficult to conceal the dread that gripped me tight as I stared wide-eyed at the king.

"Why?" I wanted to know, my voice barely above a whisper. "What does this do?"

"That," Crowley said, proudly eyeing the mark burned on my arm. "Binds you to me. Anything that happens to me, happens to you. For example."

He held up his angel blade with his left hand and raised it to his right palm. He gradually pushed the blade's tip into his flesh and, as he did this, a white hot pain seared beneath my own palm. I lost my grip on my knife, and it clattered noisily to the floor. My skin was broken, bleeding in the center of my hand, and it burned like acid in my veins. Crowley grinned, seemingly pleased by the pain he had inflicted upon me — and himself — as he pulled the blade from his hand.

"And before you ask, no, this is not a two-way street," he said. "Whatever happens to you won't effect me in the slightest. I'm not a moron."

"Why are you doing this?" I asked through gritted teeth. I rubbed the spot on my palm with my thumb, attempting to massage away the residual pain. "What are you planning?"

"Yes, why don't I just indulge you on my evil plot, then," he said sarcastically. "Not that it would matter. You'll be coming with me."

He didn't give me a chance to respond, or spit curses and foolhardy remarks. The demon king vanished before my eyes and, a split second later, I could feel him standing behind me. Mostly, I could feel the tip of his angel blade pressed threateningly against my back.

"We'll make a proper demon of you yet," he told me. I could hear the nasty smile he wore as he spoke with a pompous indignation. "So much potential for you, John. You will be a great asset to my army. You just need to be a little. More." He pushed the tip of his blade into my back, just enough to pierce the flesh and sent a wave of that hot, burning pain surging under my skin. "Broken."

"I'll never be one of you," I spoke between clenched teeth and a pain-laced grimace.

"Oh, John," Crowley said with a false sorrow. "Judging by the mess you left in the hallway." He paused to lean into me and whispered, "You already are."

I whirled around with a determined fury and made a swift, precise grab for the special blade in Crowley's grasp, but he vanished before I could reach it. I bent down to scoop up my own weapon, and when I stood upright I came face-to-face with the demon king.

"And just what do you think you're going to do with that?" he wanted to know, his tone completely lacking concern as he gave my knife a dismissive look.

"I'm going to shove it in your chest," I spat.

"Don't be daft," Crowley rolled his eyes. "Not only is that little pig-sticker of yours _not_ going to kill me, you'd only be hurting yourself."

"You seem to forget that I'm a Winchester," I viciously growled.

Crowley's smug expression gradually fell as he realized what this meant. I couldn't kill him without killing myself, but it wasn't something I would hesitate to do, not for one second. And though he may have had the upper hand with his angel blade and the extraordinary powers that had been bestowed upon him with his high rank, he knew I would gladly fight him and, judging by the cold expression that had woven its way across his brow, he wasn't confident he could win. I may have been a lowly demon, but I was still enough of a Winchester to kick his ass.

"This is far from over," he told me warningly. "I will drag you back to Hell, and I will go through Sam and Dean if I have to."

"Leave them alone." I tried to sound bold and loud, but the words came out in a stunned whisper. "They don't know who I am."

"Well, then," he said, amusement flickering across his face. "It will be genuine surprise when I kill them to get to you, won't it?"

Crowley was not threatening me, or my boys. He was making a promise.

"Oh," he swiftly added. "By the way, the bitch downstairs? Miss. Torie," he said with an eye roll. "She's as good as dead. I assume the little tart helped you?"

I said nothing, but there must have been something in my eyes, something in my expression that confirmed his suspicions about her were correct. He gently raised his brows and tilted his head back in understanding. A faint smile tugged at the corners of his lips.

"I'll be seeing you soon, Johnny."

And with that, he vanished, leaving me with a racing anxiety and a curse. For a while, I stood stiff with shock and lament. I had grown too confident in my demonized state, too cocky. I had thought I was invincible, and it made me sloppy, left me open to dastardly deeds cooked up by annoyingly clever things like Crowley. Of course this was a trap, it was obvious now. And not only did Crowley now know that I was a demon, that I belonged to Hell, I was tied to him.

The muffled, bass heavy music that had been pulsing through the floor stopped abruptly, and left a haunting silence in its wake. The sudden and deafening stillness reminded me I was still standing there, motionless, numb with horror and rage. And it reminded me of the promise I had made to Mystery. But when I turned, intending on racing out the door and down the stairs, I was made aware of what I had done.

The way to the door was strewn with bodies sprawled across the tiled floor, lying motionless in gathering pools of blood. I counted nine of them as I slowly stepped over the stiff, lifeless husks with detachment, as if I had lost control of Max's body and was being forced to witness the bloodshed and mayhem I had created. The hallway beyond Crowley's office held another five bloodied bodies, as well as Freya, who cowered in fear in the corner. She anxiously sat up upon seeing me and, when she was certain Crowley was not behind me, joined me at my side.

A hollow feeling unfolded as I shuffled to the stairs and stared down; the brick walls were smeared with blood, bodies hung limply over the banister and slumped in awkward heaps on the steps. One body was sprawled backwards across the stairs, blood flowing from a deep wound in his neck where it trickled down the step into a thick puddle.

I shuffled amongst the massacre, paralyzed with shock. And then, quite suddenly, I wasn't on the stairwell. I wasn't even in the country. For a split second, I was standing under a hot, arid sun, amidst a thick cloud of dirt and dust. My ears were ringing, and my eyes stung as I squinted into the cloud and saw blood. And bodies. Soldiers and civilians, men and women. A child.

These images flashed across my mind, surfacing in horrible bits and pieces as I took in what I had done. The memory that wasn't mine flared across my mind, and my feet fumbled at the weight the vision carried. My head spun, my chest tightened and my throat felt like it was closing. I gasped for breath as my footing fumbled and slid on the slick, bloody floor, and I reached out for the wall to catch me.

I stood with one hand pressed against the red brick with my head bowed, and my fingers clutching at my blood-stained t-shirt that suddenly felt too tight. My stomach clenched and, as I started to gag on nothing, I realized what was happening; Max was awake. Not only was he awake, he was experiencing a flashback that had launched a full on panic attack. And I could feel it all.

I lurched forward when my stomach rolled, and I threw up. Had I not been so riddled with anxiety, or didn't feel like I was suffocating, I would have found it curious that I was even able to vomit. But at the time, it was difficult to focus on much of anything but the desperate beating of my heart.

I threw up again and gasped, sucking in a deep breath of air as my nerves gradually settled.

 _Get out_.

Thoughts that didn't belong to me whispered in my mind, and it didn't take me long to figure out it was Max.

 _I changed my mind. Get out!_

"I'm sorry, Max," I muttered, wiping my mouth with my jacket sleeve. "But no."

 _This isn't what I signed up for. Get out._

I pushed myself away from the wall and steadied myself on legs that felt as though they were made of rubber.

"They were just demons," I muttered, more to myself than to Max, and I shuffled down the third floor corridor.

 _They were people, too_ , Max whispered.

"They were probably already dead," I argued, again trying to assure myself more than Max.

 _You don't know that. I didn't say anything when you started hunting, because you were saving people. But this…_

"Saving people?" I echoed, and I stopped short. In the chaos realization of my actions and the surge of brutal anxiety, I had forgotten about Mystery. Adrenaline flooded my veins and I sprinted down the corridor until I reached her office. I threw the door open, rushed inside, and my heart sank.

The lights were on, and the tiny room was intact, but Mystery was nowhere to be found. I clenched my jaw as I glanced about the office, hoping to spot spot a clue or a sign, something that pointed me in Mystery's direction. But there was nothing.

 _She wasn't a demon._

A weighted guilt grabbed at me as I stared at the vacant little space and I whispered, "what have I done?"


	12. John vs The Winchesters

I sucked in a lungful of smoke as Freya and I hurried down an uneven dirt road riddled with sandy grooves and gravely potholes. My head darted from side to side, and my eyes glanced through trees and murky wetlands of tall grass and cattails, making certain I was alone on my route to Sam and Dean. With the exception of Max's panic attack, I hadn't been that petrified in years. Not since the night Mary died.

The night I first learned things like me were real.

Fear was not a lone sentiment I carried with me on that dark road. There was a tempest of fury and remorse brewing within the very core of my being. The demon side of me struggled against the small remains of humanity that had survived the fall, but the demon was growing bigger. Not only was it swelling in size, it was devouring the bits of humanity I desperately clung to.

 _We're good, John,_ I assured myself as I took in another breath of smoke. _Things couldn't possibly get worse. Not tonight._

Of course, that was basically the equivalent of saying "the Titanic is unsinkable".

When I reached Sam and Dean, they were standing outside the Impala, which had been parked in the grass in the shadow of the burned remains of what was once a barn. Blackened planks of charred wood stood in crumbling rows, rooted in a fieldstone foundation that stood fast; singed, but strong. The scent of freshly burned wood carried across the light summer breeze, revealing the fire that had claimed the barn had been recent.

Dean was leaning casually against the trunk of the Impala, sipping from a silver flask, and Sam was staring up at the stars that peaked through the thin curtain of faint white light the small city gave off. They were conversing quietly, locked in a sobering discussion that came to an abrupt halt when they spied me approaching.

"Woah," Dean said, eyeing my blood-soaked t-shirt with a raised brow. "That better be demon blood."

"Of course it's demon blood," I hastily grumbled and I rolled my eyes. I drew in another breath of smoke before carelessly tossing the remains of my cigarette aside to smolder in the grass. "Get in the car. We need to go. Now."

Sam narrowed his eyes at me and folded his arms across his chest.

"No," he said firmly.

"It wasn't a question," I shot with an authoritative air. I briskly brushed past Sam and Dean, marched straight for the Impala, and threw the back door open. "Get in the car."

"Yeah, we don't take orders from demons," Dean spoke up. I turned to see he had planted himself firmly on the ground beside Sam, his face hardened by the command that had fallen out of my mouth without thought.

"Come with me if you want to live?" I wasn't trying to be funny, not by a long shot, but I didn't know how to rephrase my command to make myself sound less like General Dad.

"We're not going anywhere until you tell us what's going on," Sam said, firm in his decision to resist orders.

"I'll tell you on the way out of town," I hurriedly insisted. "Now let's go." I paused, and grudgingly added, " _please_?"

Sam stood fast in his place, waiting for me to share what had happened.

"You can start by telling us where the grimoire is," Dean said, taking his brother's side. His stance was not as rigid as his brother's, but he was far from relaxed. The way his fingers lightly twitched at his side, I knew he was prepared to unsheathe his angel blade at a moment's notice.

"You wanna know where the grimoire is?" I growled as I slowly stepped forward with narrowed eyes. "The grimoire was useless, and the spell you were after doesn't exist. It was all a trap that you two sent me walking into."

"A trap?" Dean echoed, and his face fell, not in sorrow for me and what had happened, but because of what this meant for his angel pal.

A frustrated breath steamrolled past my lips. I hastily pushed my left sleeve up to my elbow and extended my arm out. Sam and Dean both leaned forward to get a better view of the symbol.

"It's a curse," I informed them as they studied the mark that stretched across my flesh in red boxes and lines. "A binding spell. It ties me to Crowley. Whatever happens to him, happens to me."

"Wait, you saw Crowley?" Sam questioned, more curious than concerned, and his hazel eyes glanced up from my arm to me. "I thought Mystery told you he wouldn't be there."

"Yeah, well, he came home early," I muttered as I rolled my sleeve back down. "Mystery is gone, by the way. Crowley took her for helping me, and he's coming for you next. So, _please_ , get in the fucking car."

"Why is he coming after _us_?" Sam wanted to know, his voice somewhere between curious and pissed off. "You're the one he wants, right? Now that he knows you're topside."

"Fuck if I know," I outright lied in my desperation to get on the road. "Can we _please_ just go now?"

Sam and Dean exchanged a long, hard look, wordlessly debating their options.

"Are you two fucking deaf?" I growled when they remained silent. "Get in the fucking car!"

"Watch it," Dean sternly warned, jabbing a finger at me.

"Technically," Sam began. "You're no longer useful to us. Why should we help you?"

" _Why should you help me_?" I echoed with a turbulent disbelief, and I marched up to Sam to get in his face. "I just took a bullet for you, boy," I snarled. "You owe me."

Sam narrowed his eyes at me, but his expression was was more studious than irate, like he was trying to dissect something I had said. Dean stepped between us and forcibly shoved me away from his brother. I staggered back only a couple of steps and I fought the instinctive urge to retaliate.

"Back off," Dean barked protectively in a gravely voice. "We don't owe you anything. If Crowley's coming after us to get to you, I think we're even. In fact, I think we should just exorcise you here and now. Send you on down as a gift to Crowley from us."

My breath caught in my throat and my heart stopped.

"You wouldn't," I challenged with a shaky confidence.

"Oh, I would," Dean said with an insincere smile. "Especially if it gets Crowley off our ass."

Dean gave me a stony look, and I could tell he wasn't lying.

"So that's how it is then?" I said, jilted by Dean's brazen threats. "You blackmail me, get me caught, and now you're just going to exorcise me?"

"Give me one good reason why I shouldn't," he challenged conceitedly.

Ice filled my veins. It hooked it's frigid fingers around my muscles and clung to my bones. Dean's words were cold, and left me frozen in place. Part of me screamed to tell them who I was; they wouldn't exorcise me if they knew it was their father they were threatening. But they wouldn't believe me. If anything, they would kill me for saying it.

"Crowley didn't know I was topside, because he didn't know I was in Hell," I confessed, hoping it was a satisfying enough excuse to keep Dean from sending me back. "If you exorcise me, I'll end up in the middle of it all and Crowley..." I paused, remembering what Desdemona and her partner had each said to me back in Vegas. A thin, insincere smile lifted at the corner of my lips. "He's never going to let me die."

"Why's that?" Sam asked, prodding me for more secrets. His brows gently folded and he nodded to me. "Who _are_ you?"

"I'm the guy who managed to walk through Hell under Crowley's nose for a thousand years," I hotly snapped. "If you send me back now, he's going to personally torture me for the rest of eternity. Or worse, he's going to turn me into some goddamn raging death machine."

Sam parted his lips to speak, but no words came out. A perplexed look wove itself across his brow as he stared thoughtfully at me. He shifted in discomfort and, for a minute, he appeared to be holding his breath.

"That's impressive," Dean admitted with a look of interest. "That's actually really impressive. But it's not enough."

His hand hovered over his hip, preparing to arm himself as he shot me a cold but wary stare.

"Seriously?" I asked, somewhere between annoyed and horrified. "I thought you were team Maddox."

"I was," Dean acknowledged, advancing towards me. "And I sympathize with the soul selling, man. I do. But at the end of the day, you're just another demon."

The old saying, "sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me"? I don't know about anyone else, but I've been bitten, clawed at, shot, maimed and shredded. I've suffered fractures and breaks and a century of being hacked to pieces every damn day. And no tooth or bullet or blade had ever sunk as deep or stung so bitterly as Dean's words. I tried to keep the pain from rising to the surface, tried to swallow it before he could notice. And he didn't. He boldly stepped within inches of my face and glared into my eyes, either trying to prove he wasn't afraid of me, or trying to provoke me into doing something, anything that would give him a better excuse to exorcise me. I should have seen the glint of hesitation that lingered behind his eye. I should have realized he didn't really _want_ to exorcise me, that he was only standing his ground, sticking to his principles. And, thanks to hindsight, I did eventually see it. But in that moment, as the pain slowly dissolved and I remembered the threat of going back to hell, all I saw was red.

"You best get out of my face, boy," I spat between my teeth. I bit back the urge to lash out and beat my knuckles against his jaw. Dean cringed at the word _boy_ , but bypassed it to give me a knowing, arrogant grin.

"Or what?" he challenged with confidence.

An electric fire of pure rage rolled from my chest and engulfed the blackened _thing_ that used to be my soul. My fingers curled into tight fists that trembled at my sides, and I fought against the desire to lash out and strike him. To pick him up and send him sailing into the night.

 _Come on. We're on a roll tonight. They're going to exorcise you if you don't._

 _No_. _I can't hurt them._

"Yeah," Dean said with a small sneer when I did not retaliate. "That's what I thought."

 _Do not let him send you back down there!_

"Exorcizamus te…"

"Wait!"

The words cut through the ancient incantation like sharks teeth. Surprised, Dean and I both turned our heads to look at Sam. Sam's eyes were on me, and they were full of questions. But when his lips parted, he only asked one; "Which one of you is bound to Crowley?"

I tried to swallow past the blazing fury, tried to steady my rapid breath as I blinked at Sam.

"I don't know," I replied with a slight roil in my voice.

"Wait," Dean said, taking a couple of slow steps back, his eyes falling to me. "You're saying Max could be cursed instead of you?"

"We did both technically touch it," I said as the fire gradually died down, not completely, but enough to hold a conversation without tearing anyone's head off.

"So there's a chance we're left with a cursed meatsuit if we exorcise you?" Dean wants full clarification on what might happen if I were to vacate my host. I shrugged, and he glanced between me and his brother. He put his hands on his hips, hung his head and sighed. "Shit."

"If you're gonna stab me in the back and send me back downstairs, I… _request_ you wait until I help figure this mess out," I spoke up, ruefully remembering not to bark orders. "I'm responsible for him. I'm not… I would _prefer_ not to leave him with this. It's not like I did anything to deserve an exorcism, anyway."

"You did put Crowley on our ass," Dean said, turning his head to look at me. He glanced over to Sam for a second opinion, which he gave with a small shrug that seemed to say _why not?_ "Fine," he grumbled as he kicked a clump of dirt with the toe of his heavy black boots. "Just until we figure out how to unbind you from Crowley."

"Mystery," I spoke up. "I have to help her, too. I promised I would keep her safe."

"Man, you are just batting zero today," Dean scoffed, but his expression lacked irritation. He knew the dread that came with failing someone you've promised to protect, even if it is a complete stranger. "Fine. Yes. We will find Mystery. But if we run into Crowley, so help me god, I will give you to him myself."

"Well then. We better not run into Crowley."


	13. Demon vs Angel

Rain lashed against the windows and pounded against the weathered pavement of the lonesome highway that cut through tall growing fields of corn. The roar of the Impala's engine collided with the slapping of water against the car's undercarriage to create a familiar white noise that echoed just beneath the melody of _Hey Joe_. The wipers scraped against the windshield in a painful whine, causing Dean to curse the worn blades that left a thick arch of water in his line of vision. He bobbed his head and twisted his neck in awkward angles in an effort to get a clear view of the road between the blurred streaks of water.

Aside from Dean's grumbling, no one said a word. In fact, the whole southbound trip through Michigan into Indiana and Illinois had been almost entirely wordless. Dean had tried to get a hold of Castiel a few dozen times during the commute, and had left irksome messages, but that was it. Neither of my sons pressed me for details of my daring escape from the demon's clutches, or questioned my ability to pull off such a feat. Dean was too preoccupied with trying to reach his celestial pal to wonder too long or too hard about things like how the demon sitting behind him had eluded Crowley for so long. Sam, on the other hand, appeared as though he were desperately trying to ignore me. He sat in the passenger seat with his body turned at a slight angle to remove me from his peripheral view.

The Impala was quiet, but my mind was not. Far from it. I was locked in an internal battle where guilt fiercely collided with lust. It was the same war I had been fighting since Baton Rouge, but this battle was different. This battle was violent. It was bloodthirsty and frantic. It was the Gettysburg to my Civil War, the Normandy to my second World War. It was Vietnam in its entirety.

It didn't help that Max was awake and full of piss and vinegar.

 _Get out_ , he chanted at me, over and over until the words had lost all meaning. _Get out._

My fingers curled themselves into fists and I tried to concentrate on the music. The smooth growl of the Impala's engine. The back of Dean's head. Anything but the incessant whispers Max was drilling into my skull.

 _Get out. Get out. Get out. Get out._

"Shut up!"

Dean's eyes reflected against the rearview mirror, his brow creased sternly in question. Sam, for the first time since Traverse City, turned to look at me. He gave me a discontented look as his gaze hesitantly lingered on me; he was torn between going back to ignoring me, and making sure I wasn't going to go nuclear in the car. I cleared my throat and shifted uncomfortably in my seat as they stared me down.

"We got a problem back there?" Dean's rough voice asked, his eyes flickering between the road and my reflection in the rearview mirror.

"Nope," I lied through my teeth. "Could use a cigarette, though."

"We'll be stopping soon enough," Dean said, offhandedly refusing to pull over for me or my habit. I sighed and sat back in my seat and stared distantly at the flat farmland that passed by in dull smears of green and brown.

 _Get out, goddamnit_!

My fingers dug themselves into my thighs. I withheld the explosive desire to bark another heated response. God only knew what would happen if even a little of my rage were to slip out.

 _Get the fuck out!_ Max raged, and an involuntary growl softly rumbled in my throat.

 _No._

 _Yes! I changed my mind. You do not have my permission to possess me._

 _I never needed your permission_ , I reminded the voice.

 _I thought you said you were different_ , Max grumbled. _But you're not, are you? You're just like the rest of those black-eyed bitches._

 _No,_ I replied. _I'm smarter than the rest of those black-eyed bitches._

 _That's not comforting, man._

 _Look_ , I began with an internal sigh, closely eyeing Sam and Dean, who had returned their focus on the road ahead. _I'm sorry. This isn't exactly what I had mind when I crawled my way out of Hell. But I wasn't given much of a choice._

 _Bullshit_ , Max's voice scoffed. _You could have let them kill you._

 _You mean us_ , I reminded him.

 _Yeah, man_ , Max said with a heavy sarcasm. _Cause I'm totally against that._ There was a long pause and for a minute I thought he might be done berating me. And then; _If they don't eventually kill us, they're gonna figure out who you are._

My muscles tensed, and I sat rigid in my seat.

 _Don't go digging around in there,_ I warned my host against rooting around my memories.

 _When they find out who you are,_ Max continued, ignoring my advice against searching for thoughts that were none of his business. _They're gonna be horrified their father didn't kill himself the instant he turned demon._

 _Doubtful,_ I shot with hostility.

 _John Winchester would never let himself become this,_ Max taunted scornfully, trying to push me over the edge, trying to force me out or get us killed; both, if he was lucky.

 _You may have found a way to access my memories,_ I growled in return. _But you don't know shit about me._

 _I know all that honor you used to be so full of went out the window the minute your eyes went black,_ Max said. _Lieutenant Pierce would be disappointed in you._

"Shut the fuck up, you ground-pounder grunt!"

 _Goddamn it. That was out loud, wasn't it?_

I glanced up to see Sam and Dean had turned in their seats and were, once again, shooting discomforting glances my way. I blinked a few times, attempting to clear my vision and my head of the trance-like state I had been in during my mental discussion with Max. I coughed and shifted awkwardly, and absently reached out to stroke Freya's rough coat.

"Max," I explained my second sudden outburst. "He's being a whiny ass son of a bitch. Private can't seem to handle a little demon blood."

 _You're the son of a bitch, you jarhead prick._

I flashed a grin, signaling to my boys that I was fine, and to Max that I found his insult anything but. Dean rolled his eyes and, giving Sam a stern look, pointed to his own eyes with his index and middle fingers before jabbing his thumb in my direction. Sam grumbled at Dean's wordless command, but didn't protest as Dean reached for the handle and popped his door open.

It was then that I noticed we weren't moving. The Impala was parked at a nearly-deserted rest stop alongside the Illinois highway. Rain continued to spill from the dreary skies above, temporarily catching on the canopy of old oak trees before cascading down in weighted droplets. Dean stepped out into the wet afternoon, and hurried across the parking lot to the dry shelter of the restrooms.

I seized the opportunity to stretch my legs, and exited the Impala without a word. Freya leapt joyfully from the constraints of the car and bounded instantly for the small wooded area on the opposite end of the parking lot. I followed my hound at a distance across the trim, wet grass, and it didn't take me long to realize that I, too, was being followed.

"Seriously?" I said without turning around. "You don't trust me enough by now to let me have a smoke in peace?"

"Do you really have to ask me that?" Sam's voice calmly returned from behind, and I sighed. I stopped to light a cigarette with my silver zippo, and turned to face him. The way looked at me now was different than he had in the beginning; before, his eyes were filled with distrust and disdain, but now they appeared thoughtful, and worried.

"What, you and your brother trade roles or something?" I questioned bitterly with a mouthful of smoke. "He's the bad cop and you're the good cop now?"

"Neither of us are cops," Sam replied as he stuffed his hands inside his jacket pockets. "We've just been burned by too many demons." He paused to study me, watching a thin wisp of gray smoke dance at the end of my cigarette. "Where'd you serve?"

A small frown creased at my brow and my lips tightened. With my cigarette between my fingers, I vaguely scratched at the stubble under my chin and contemplated whether or not I would respond. I opened my mouth to speak, to say "'Nam", but instead I sucked in another breath of smoke. They already knew too much, and the way Sam's demeanor towards me had drastically changed, I could tell he had begun to suspect something.

"I know you're a military man," Sam said knowingly when I remained silent. "You did just call Max a grunt."

"And?" I challenged.

"And back in Vegas, you referred to Cas as an 'ate up motherfucker'," he said as he tilted his head slightly. "I've only ever heard that expression from a Marine."

"And?" I said again, using a cold and careless voice. "The fuck do you care? I'm a demon now. Last time I checked, you didn't give a damn about who I used to be."

"That was before…" Sam began, but trailed off. He shook his head and took a small step back, as if he had suddenly remembered my demonic condition. "Never mind," he muttered. "I thought for a minute…" He paused and a thin, faux smile awkwardly spread across his lips. "It's nothing."

I cocked a brow and tried to pretend like I didn't know what he was talking about. Like I was indifferent to what he might have thought, or, in all likelihood, was still thinking. I turned my gaze from him and moved my grip on my cigarette, holding it between my thumb and my index finger to create a makeshift shelter with my hand for my tobacco against the rain. I took a long drag of nicotine and stared across the parking lot where Dean stood under a weathered brown awning with his cell phone clutched in one hand and his flask in the other.

"What's your brother's deal?" I asked. Sam turned his frame slightly and followed my gaze to Dean.

"Oh," he said with a small, bothersome shrug. "He's what he likes to call a 'functional alcoholic'."

"Not the day drinking." I rolled my eyes, but I could feel the guilt knot in the pit of my stomach.

 _You did that to him_ , Max whispered.

 _Yeah,_ I somberly admitted. _I know._

"For a minute there, I thought Dean almost kind of liked me," I said and I pushed the shame away, stuffed it down into the dark pit where I stored every uncomfortable emotion.

"Yeah, well," Sam began with a shrug. "Dean almost kind of likes Crowley sometimes, too."

"Thanks," I scoffed sarcastically. He turned his eyes to the parking lot and watched a gold Lincoln Continental slowly pull its way across the pavement.

"Come on," Sam said, motioning for me to follow him as he lumbered across the wet grass to the Impala. A long sigh of smoke tumbled past my lips as a wave of dread flooded my veins. The last place I wanted to be was in the backseat of that car, trapped in a cloud of stiff silence, feeling like I could explode at any moment.

 _Demonism is not agreeing with you, John_ , I thought to myself. And, from somewhere in the back of my mind a dark voice – my voice – replied; _Stop fighting what you are and let it agree with you._

I flexed my fingers, tried to shake the icy chill this thought had created. I closed my eyes and I drew in a slow, deep breath. I attempted to clear my mind of everything, but all I could think of was letting go. Abandoning the last shreds of humanity I held on to. Finally ending the internal conflict.

 _I'm not opposed to suicide_ , Max gently whispered in my mind, fully aware of what I had been thinking.

I turned. I tried to ignore Max and his words, and instead searched for signs of Freya.

 _You can't hold back forever,_ Max went on as I swept my eyes through the trees.

"Yeah, we'll fucking see," I mumbled.

I spied Freya cowering behind the thick trunk of a grand old oak tree. She trembled in fear as she warily peered at the parking lot, and she crouched with uncertainty; she couldn't decide if she should hide, or run like hell. When she noticed me, she shot me a pleading look, silently begging me to join her.

Freya was, for the most part, not a coward. She was the runt the other hellhounds used to pick on, but she was typically fairly fearless. Outside of Hell, I had only seen Freya cower in fear once, and the thing that had caused her to feel such terror had been Crowley. So when I saw her whimpering and shaking behind the tree, I knew we were not alone at that roadside reststop.

I turned on a quick heel, expecting to find the king of Hell waltzing smugly through the parking lot towards my sons. Only there was no Crowley. There were no demons at all. Just a dark haired man in a tan trenchcoat who, to Sam and Dean, looked like nothing short of a mortal man. But not to me. I could see the pure, blue-white light that glowed from within him, and encircled his head in a luminous halo. It was beautiful and awesome in the most literal sense.

And I hated it with every fiber of my being.

I had never seen anything like it before, but I knew, without a doubt, that what I was looking at was an angel. A hot rage cascaded over me, flooding my body from head to toe with an uncontrollable fury that shook me to the core. I blinked, and I could feel my eyes change from blue to solid black. A low, menacing growl rolled through my throat and I automatically went for my Kurdish blade.

 _No!_ Max bellowed in my mind, beyond horrified by what I was about to attempt. _Do not kill that angel, do you hear me? Do not kill–_

His pleas stopped abruptly, and my host passed into a deep slumber. I had unleashed the demon part of me – the part of me I had desperately been trying to withhold – and he was stronger than I was. He could force the resilient Max back to sleep as if it were nothing. And he could kill an angel.

 _Not with that pig-sticker, you idiot,_ something somewhere inside of me said, but I didn't pay it any attention. My Kurdish blade couldn't kill him, but I was willing to bet the angel carried a weapon that could, and I was confident I could take it from him and use it against him.

I stormed across the wet grass towards the celestial being that conversed with my sons. He noticed me and my hostile advances almost immediately, and his eyes widened with surprise. His expression lacked completely the sense of fear I had hoped the vision of me madly marching towards him with black eyes and a sharp blade would invoke. Instead, he seemed genuinely astonished by my presence; baffled and a little confused, but not remotely scared.

Which was infuriating.

"I'm going to fucking kill you, you ate up motherfucker!" I growled, and his face smoothed into understanding.

"What the fuck, Maddox?!" Dean cried in outrage, mortified by my behavior towards his friend, but I barely heard him. I barely heard anything as I descended upon the angel, and drew my blade back to gain enough inertia to drive it through his chest. My hand, clutched tightly around the bone hilt of the blade, speedily descended with a savage force, but the angel expertly blocked my attempt to stab him. He clasped his fingers around my forearm, and his electric blue eyes gazed upon me with an empathetic air. I growled at his sympathies and threw my left fist towards his face, but the angel caught my hand in his. My right leg came up and I forcefully kicked him square in the stomach. The angel lost his grip on me as he stumbled backwards, but only a few steps, and he held onto his balance.

"Stop!"

I could hear Dean's desperate barking above the rhythm of my pounding heart, but I ignored him. Instead, I swung my blade at the angel again, aiming this time for his head. His arm lashed out at mine, striking me in the inside of my elbow with such a force it caused me to lose my grip on my mostly-useless blade. My left fist swung up and struck the angel's jaw, and he fell back a tiny step.

"Goddamn it, I said stop!" Dean barked.

I threw my right fist in the angel's direction, but he swayed out of my way and took another step back.

"It's okay, Dean," the angel's deep voice assured my son with his eyes set on me. "I won't hurt him."

"Fuck him!" Dean said. "Don't let _him_ hurt _you_!"

The angel's brow folded gently into a look of confusion, but he quickly dismissed it when he noticed that I was charging him. A violent growl escaped my lips as I tackled him to the ground where I straddled him at his waist.

"You!" I snarled and struck him in the cheekbone with my right fist. "You did this to me, you son of a bitch!"

I threw another punch, but he caught my fist with ease.

"I know," he admitted with a calm regret. "I'm sorry."

His placid and apologetic demeanor was infuriating, and I couldn't help the low, demonic grumble that bubbled up from my gut. I drew my fist back, ready to wipe his righteous empathy off his face, when I was stopped quite unexpectedly from behind. A torrid liquid slapped me against the back of the head and scorched my flesh. I gasped in agony as the acidic substance rolled down my neck, but soon the pain paved the way to a new kind of fury. I twisted around, prepared to utilize my demonic abilities to send whomever had splashed me with holy water sailing through the parking lot.

And then I saw Sam's face. He was brave and fierce, but he was scared, especially once he saw my arm outstretched, ready to push him back, ready to hurt him. I blinked. My eyes returned from black to blue, and I gradually lowered my arm. Sam's expression fell to a look of pure shock as he stared at me with wide eyes and a heavy breath.

 _He knows_.

Dean's hands suddenly planted themselves against my chest and he shoved me backwards with a forceful thrust. I allowed myself to tumble to the wet grass below where I sat, shaking with rage and remorse as Dean helped the angel to his feet.

"You okay?" he asked with concern, tightly gripping the sleeve of the angel's trench coat.

"Yes, I'm fine," the angel replied as he dusted himself. Dean's brow folded with a cold hatred as he glared down at me.

"What the fuck was that?" he barked aggressively.

"It's okay, Dean," the angel said, his eyes on me. "He has every right to be upset. I'm sure it's difficult for him to hold back the animosity he holds for my kind in his current state."

I shakily rose to my feet and exhaled a slow, uneven breath. I glanced over to Sam, who continued to gawk at me with a terrified awe, and I quickly looked away, bowing my head in shame.

"What are you talking about?" Dean asked, looking between the angel and me. "You know him?"

"Not personally, no," the angel shook his head. "But I do, of course, know who he is." He glanced to Dean with confusion laced across his brow. "Why didn't you tell me the demon you were working with was your father?"


	14. John, Revealed

_Terribly sorry for the delay on the update. I didn't mean to leave you hanging for this long. There seems to be some kind of a dam in my mind that's backing up all the words that used to freely flow. Advance apologies if it takes a little while for me to get the rest of this story out. Also, many thanks to those who reviewed the last chapter!_

* * *

The sounds of rain splattering pavement and leaves echoed through the trees, and made the silence more prominent. More real. Excruciating and maddening.

No one spoke a word. We stood motionless as rain and reality soaked our skin to the bone. Sam's expression hadn't changed much since the angel had confirmed the conclusion he had already drawn. His hazel eyes held a hint of sorrow, but mostly he remained stunned. Dean, on the other hand, was less willing to believe I was who Castiel claimed I was. He looked between me and his angel friend with baffled disgust.

"That's not fucking funny, Cas." Dean's voice shook with rage as he scolded the angel, who's confusion remained plastered across his face. Castiel tilted his head and the crease in his brow deepened.

"Of course it's not funny," he agreed. "I wasn't laughing." He paused to glance at me and, upon seeing the shame on my face, his expression softened into understanding. "I see. You did not tell them who you are."

"Yes, he did," Dean insistently spat, waving an arm in my direction. "His name is Maddox. And he is not my father."

"I'm sorry," Castiel said with sympathetic eyes, and he gingerly placed a hand on Dean's shoulder. "But that demon is your father."

"No!" Dean shrugged Castiel's hand away. He brought a fist up, more for show than as a threatening gesture, and idly shook it in Castiel's direction. "He can't be my dad. See, cause my dad went…" He trailed off when he remembered he didn't actually know where I had gone when I disappeared in a flicker of light. Horror flared in his eyes and they grew moist with gathering tears. "He can't be."

"What reason would I have to lie to you about this?" Castiel asked. He pointed to Sam without turning his eyes from Dean. "Sam knows this to be true."

Dean's gaze shot from the angel to his brother. His head briskly drew back in surprise when he noticed Sam's bewildered face.

"You don't seriously buy this, do you?" Dean questioned, appalled by Sam's reaction. I hesitantly turned my head to look at Sam.

"Yeah," he confessed, his gaze still fixed on me. He blinked and his face folded into something terrible and painful. "I do."

I shifted awkwardly where I stood and nervously rubbed at the nape of my neck. Dean blinked in disbelief, staring between his brother and me. He slowly shook his head and took a step back.

"He can't be," he whispered. "There's no way he was in the pit this whole time." He stared at me with misery and malice. "Why aren't you saying anything?" he demanded to know with a furious panic. "Say something!"

"What do you want me to say?" I questioned, managing a calm tone despite how agitated I felt.

"Tell me you're not him," Dean said with pleading eyes. Eyes that begged for me to tell him I wasn't his father, not because he couldn't stand the thought of me as a demon, but because of the guilt he would torment himself with. He still blamed himself for what I'd done for him so many years before. Knowing I had never gone to Heaven would break him.

But I couldn't lie. Not this time. Sam had figured it out before Castiel even said it. Deep down, even Dean knew it; he just didn't want it to be true.

"I… can't."

Dean clasped a hand over his mouth. A single tear spilled from the corner of his eye and ran freely down his cheek. He shivered as he stared at me, his jade eyes centered distantly on me. His chest heaved in a borderline panic and, for a minute, it looked like he was about to collapse. His knees began to buckle and he staggered backwards. He caught himself, steadying his shaky legs and slowly brought his hand down and away from his face.

"... Dad?" he whispered.

"Hi, Dean." I forced a grin, the same grin I used to give him when I came home after a hunt. It was tired and painful, but it also carried a sense of deep relief at the sight of my son. I'm sure it looked different on Max's face, but the gleam in Dean's eye told me it was familiar.

The deafening silence returned. Dean's face paled and, for a minute, it looked like he was going to throw up. Then he did something completely unexpected; he marched up to me and threw his arms around me.

At first I was too stunned by his reaction to move. I had expected him to continue his denials in a heated rage. I thought he would scream at Castiel and Sam for believing such a thing. I expected an intensive quiz on things nobody but I could possibly know. But the denials and the questions never came. Gradually, I not only accepted his embrace, I returned it with full force.

We clung to each other as if we were never going to let go. A sorrowful calm swept through me as the darkness gradually retreated to allow me this tiny reprieve. To allow me to take in the feel of my son's embrace and, for the first time since I fell, to feel something good.

When Dean pulled away, his cheeks glistened with fallen tears. He clamped a hand on my shoulder and a tiny smile curved across his lips.

"I never thought I would see you again." His voice carried a deep note of relief that blended with an air of wonder. His smile disappeared and his expression twisted into a look of confusion. "Why didn't you tell us?"

"Would you have believed me?"

Dean carefully thought about this before he slowly shook his head.

"No," he admitted with a short, humorless laugh. "In fact, I probably would have stabbed you in face for saying it." He paused as a wounded look creased his brow. "Why didn't you come look for us?"

A heavy sigh steamrolled past my lips.

"I wanted to," I insisted. "I did. But I…" I faltered. I discovered I didn't have to go on when I peered into Dean's face; it was tight with terrible understanding; I hadn't avoid them because I didn't want to see them, but because I didn't want them to see me.

A guilt-laced horror washed over Dean. He brought a hand up to his forehead as he backed away from me. His mouth hung open as he fought back the tears that welled in his eyes.

"I'm so sorry," he whispered. His hand slid down the right side of his face until it covered part of his mouth. "I didn't know… dad, I'm so sorry."

"This isn't your fault," I spoke firmly. My eyes flickered to the angel who stood watch behind Dean. "Isn't that right, Castiel?" I spat the angels name like it was poison on my tongue. Dean's brows knitted together in a perplexed look as he turned to look at his celestial friend. Castiel hung his head, but his shame-filled eyes remained on Dean.

"The cupid's spell…" Dean murmured to himself as he fit the pieces together in his mind. "Fate. It was all a set up. You wanted him to go to Hell." A wild anger blazed behind his green eyes and his body stiffened. His fingers curled into tight fists as he glowered at Castiel. "Why didn't you tell me?" he demanded to know, furious his friend had withheld this information from him. "Why didn't you save him?"

A painful regret formed on the angel's face, and he lowered his gaze to the cold, wet ground.

"We knew your father had returned to perdition," he admitted without looking at Dean. "But we couldn't find him." He paused and found the courage to lift his eyes to my son again, but the remorse remained. "Even if we had known where he was…" He trailed off, deciding against finishing his statement. He didn't need to. We all knew where his story was going. "I'm sorry, Dean," he gently apologized. "But if you had known, you would have tried to rescue him."

"You're damn right I would have," Dean said with a heated pride. Castiel sighed.

"The journey would have killed you," the angel said as a matter of factly, this time without regret.

"Sam got Bobby out," Dean argued, pointing to his brother, who remained in his place beside me, stunned speechless.

Castiel heaved an impatient sigh.

"Retrieving Bobby's soul was different," the angel attempted to explain. "Sam did not have to travel very far into Hell to find him. I can't imagine how deep your father's soul…" He halted and carefully considered the word he seemed hesitant to use. "Fell."

"Did you seriously doubt we couldn't do it?" Dean challenged, more hurt than offended by his friend's misgivings about his capabilities. The angel's blue eyes fluttered to me, wordlessly begging me to help him reign in Dean's temper. The last thing I wanted to do was help an angel. I was thoroughly enjoying Dean's argument with the celestial being. But it was ill-timed, and low on our list of problems.

"That's enough," I spoke loud and clear, and Dean's head snapped back to me. "We have more important things to worry about right now."

Dean blinked and gradually nodded. His natural reaction to my giving orders as a demon was to defy them with threats of exorcism, but he remembered who the demon was, and easily obeyed.

"Yes, sir." Just like old times.

His right hand lifted to his forehead and he stared distantly at the ground, lost with overwhelming thoughts and ideas.

"We gotta get you cured," he stated decidedly, looking up to me again.

"I'm not sure curing your father would be wise," Castiel spoke up, and Dean shot him a glare. "Not now, anyway."

"Are you shitting me?!" Dean fumed, throwing his hands up.

"You mentioned he's been bound to Crowley," Castiel went on, ignoring Dean's frenzied fit. "I wouldn't put it past Crowley to torture himself if he knew your father could feel it. As a demon, it will be unpleasant, but as a human…"

Castiel didn't finish. He didn't have to. We all knew I could survive anything Crowley might attempt to do to me as long as I stayed a demon. But my chances of surviving whatever the king might do if were I human were far, far slimmer.

"Shit," Dean muttered in defeat.

"We don't even know what will happen to me after I die if you do cure me," I interjected, reminding Dean of the conversation we'd shared in Albuquerque. "As much as I'd love to be cured, if I'm just going to end up back in Hell, I'd rather not bother."

Dean's brow wrinkled into a gentle protest. He refused to believe there was no way around my condition, refused to acknowledge the horrible possibility that I would be stuck like this. Forever.

"We'll figure it out," he promised. "We always find a way. Right, Sam?"

All eyes fell to Sam, who stood motionless and uncomfortable in the proverbial spotlight. He absently nodded as he continued to warily eye me, barely blinking in his struggles with the weight my identity had left in his mind.

"Yeah." The whispered word choked out with minimal conviction.

"Come on, Sammy," Dean said, rolling his eyes. "Say it like you mean it."

"We should get going," Sam said instead. He turned his hazel eyes away from me and to the angel. "Mind if I ride with you, Cas?"

A muddled expression weaved its way across the angel's face where it stayed until understanding found him. His expression softened and he nodded.

"Yes. Of course, Sam."

I turned to look at Sam, but he was halfway to the Impala with his head turned away from me. He retrieved his weathered backpack from the front seat and hastily slung it around his shoulder. He made it a point not to look at me as he climbed into the passenger's seat of the gold Lincoln, and wordlessly closed the door behind him.

Seeing Sam so bitterly rattled stung, and it must have shown, because a hand was suddenly placed on my right shoulder. I turned to see Castiel and the flat, empathetic smile he offered.

"He just needs some time to adjust," he told me reassuringly with a kind voice. I shrugged his hand away from me with a violent jerk.

"Don't touch me," I growled warningly.

Castiel's hand fell slack at his side. He turned to Dean, offering him the same lopsided half-smile-half-frown. Dean returned the compassionate look with a cold stare.

"Dean, I-"

"Don't," Dean abruptly interrupted, putting a fist up to signify he was disinterested in anything the angel might have to say. I couldn't help the childish smirk that pulled at my lips, or the delight I found in Dean's sudden contempt for the angel. Neither of them noticed this.

Castiel wordlessly shuffled past us and climbed into his car. We watched as he jammed the keys into the ignition and backed the old Lincoln into the parking lot before gradually pulling towards the highway.

"Come on," Dean broke the quietude. He pulled his keys from his pocket and paused. He stared down at the silver objects before extending them to me. "You wanna drive?"

I offered him a tiny grin and shook my head.

"Naw," I said. "Just make sure you replace those wiper blades next town we come to."

"Yes, sir."


	15. The Bunker

**Sorry for the massive gap between updates. I had originally gone in a slightly different direction with this chapter, which ran me right into a dead end that was also a sand trap. So I turned her around and I'm hoping this sets me on the right path 'cause I'm putting it out there. Also other reasons that have yet to be resolved but I'm trying like hell not to let them keep me from writing as they have been of late. AKF, right?  
**

* * *

"Are you aware that there's a Hellhound running around the bunker?"

Castiel's eyes were latched onto Freya, watching her rocket back and forth between the library and the "war room". The expression the angel wore was more curious than it was cautious, presumably because I could also see her, and I was not in panic mode. I was so far removed from panic mode, I would have looked calm were it not for the deep glower I had fixed on the fucking angel. It was so intensely hateful, for a minute I thought it would take a form of its own and cleave the broken-winged son of a bitch.

No such luck.

"That's Freya," Dean said, casual but curt. He approached the table where I was sitting, the table furthest from the war room. In his right hand he carried a mostly full bottle of cheap whisky, in his left he held three rocks glasses. "She's dad's dog."

"I see."

A troubled silence crept its way between the click of Freya's paws slapping against the hardwood floors and the sloshing of whisky against glass. Castiel slid a chair out from under the table – the chair directly across the table from me – and the whine of wood scraping against wood echoed in the quietude. His gaze met mine, and he was not surprised to find me glaring daggers, nor was he entirely comfortable with it. The angel cleared his throat and shifted his eyes to Dean.

Sam, seated diagonally from me, was also trying to avoid eye contact with me, and was doing an awkward job of it. He leaned back in his chair with his knee bouncing and his head turned slightly away. For the most part, he didn't look at me. _Wouldn't_ look at me. But occasionally I would catch his eyes wandering in my direction, as if a part of him wanted to stare at me the same way a rubbernecker watches the aftermath of a car crash. But he would always catch himself before they strayed too far and they would snap back towards a bookshelf or the ceiling.

Dean slid a glass across the table to Sam, who picked it up and gulped it down like water after a week in the Sahara. The second glass was pushed sideways to me, the third Dean lifted to his own lips. He took a deep sip before he took a seat beside me.

"Alright," he said, sidestepping the tension that filled the air to get down to business. "We've got a few things to figure out. Starting with how to get that mark off dad."

More silence. More avoiding eyes and deep glares.

"Don't everyone talk at once," Dean muttered.

I forcefully drew myself from the depths of malice and into the bunker that smelled of old spice and whisky with musty undertones.

"What we need to start with is staying off Crowley's raidar," I spoke as I pulled a pack of cigarettes from my jacket pocket.

"Ain't no safer place in the world than the bunker," Dean told me with a note of pride. "It's warded to the teeth. Nothing's getting in, not without an invitation."

"That may be," Castiel interjected. "But Crowley does know the location of the bunker. He has been here."

"Shit," Dean grumbled. Castiel glanced at me with a hopeful look. ("Look, I'm helping!") I narrowed my eyes at him. ("I don't need your damn help.")

Freya wandered to the table, her legs contently stretched, and sniffed cautiously at Castiel's trenchcoat. I placed a cigarette between my lips and watched as Castiel lowered his hand and tentatively patted her head. At first Freya recoiled at the celestial being's touch, but quickly warmed up to it and leaned into him.

"Traitor," I muttered, and lit my cigarette.

"Okay, new plan." Dean's eyes darted back and forth, staring at the table as he ransacked his mind for his new plan. "Grab all the books we can on curses and cheating Hell, load up the Impala and haul ass outta Dodge."

"I'm assuming since Crowley knows where the bunker is, he also knows what you drive," I spoke around my cigarette. I took in a deep breath of smoke and exhaled as I pocketed the pack and my zippo. "You did park it out of view back in Michigan for a reason, right?"

"Fuck," Dean muttered, and rubbed his forehead with his hand.

"There's no smoking in here."

All eyes fell to Sam. He was finally looking at me. A thin layer of disapproval covered a stormy fury the same way seran wrap covers a chocolate cake. He wanted to look annoyed, and he was, but mostly, he was angry.

"That's all you got?" I retorted with a breath of smoke. "You haven't said a goddamn word to me since Illinois and that's what you got? _No smoking_?"

"Oh, I'm just getting started," Sam returned, heat rising to his face in a deep red hue.

"That's enough!" Dean's voice rang loud and stern, its direction aimed mostly at Sam. "You can say your peace when we've figured this out. But right now you need to stow it. We've got bigger fish to fry."

Sam flexed his jaw and exhaled briskly through his nose. He wanted to continue, but he bit back whatever storm of words he had brewing in his brain and took another long guzzle of whisky.

"Okay," Dean said when he was satisfied with Sam's sullen silence. "Where were we?"

"I believe we were discussing _hauling ass_ out of _Dodge_ ," Castiel said helpfully, stressing the words that seemed to puzzle him as he continued to pet Freya.

"There's also the matter of what to do about Crowley," I added to the growing list, ignoring my companion's betrayal for the time being. Dean narrowed his eyes in confusion.

"What do you mean?" he asked.

"Flying under the radar doesn't exactly fix the real problem," I said. "Now, you can break the bond he's got on me and cure me, but the fact is, he's never going to stop hunting me. Or you two, for that matter. Not as long as I'm around."

"What are you saying?" Dean questioned and his body tensed. There was hesitation in his voice, a note of trepidation.

"I'm saying we kill the sonuvabitch."

Seemed simple enough. And thrilling. I was itching for a shot at driving a blade through his black heart and watching the light flicker and fade.

"After we've removed the binding spell," Dean said. It wasn't a question, but the way he said it, it kind of was. I didn't reply, and Dean found that more alarming than any response could have been.

Truth was, I couldn't shake the feeling there was only one real way out of this. The minute my mortal name rolled off of Crowley's tongue, it was all over. It might have been different if he was hunting me and me alone. But he wasn't.

 _I'm still not opposed to suicide._

 _Yes, Max. I'm fucking aware._

"I'm not certain killing Crowley is wise," Castiel cut the mounting tension with a calculated opinion. "Killing him would, of course, take Crowley off the proverbial board. But his death would give way to a new king, and if your father evaded the legions of Hell for as long as he did, no king of Hell would let that stand. He'll be hunted for the rest of his existence. Unless…" The angel's face turned thoughtful, then quickly morphed into something more tentative. Dean raised his brows in expectation.

"You gonna share with the class, Cas?" he said impatiently when Castiel failed to continue. " _Unless_ what?"

" _Unless_ your father stakes claim to the throne," he finished.

Dean found this idea revolting.

"Uh-uh," he said, shaking his head. "No way."

Sam, on the other hand, was less perturbed by the notion. He nodded thoughtfully, and it was something Dean found as equally revolting as the idea.

"Sam," he growled.

"What?" Sam said with a defensive yet casual shrug. "I mean, it's not ideal, but it could work. It would be nice to have someone on our side in charge downstairs."

All eyes fell on me, silently waiting for my say in the matter.

"I'm not going to rule Hell," I stated flatly, carelessly flicking ash to the floor. "I'll gladly kill Crowley, but I'm not taking his place."

My response eased Dean's mind. He nodded in the minor victory and took a drink from his glass.

"You could, of course, always close the gates of Hell," the angel offered another solution as I took a sip from my glass. "Use your father in the final trial. That would solve your demon issue, and your father could not return to perdition when his time comes."

This struck a chord with Dean. His eyes brightened and he nodded.

"That could work," he agreed. Pause. Then, quietly; "I'll do it."

"Dean, no," Sam immediately protested.

"It's the best plan we've come up with so far," Dean said, averting his eyes from all to stare at the table. "Someone's gotta do it. It should be me."

"Why?" Sam challenged, launching himself forward in his seat. "Because you still blame yourself for what dad did?"

"You're damn right I do," Dean shot. His fists clenched and his gaze lifted to his brother. He stared at Sam with eyes that were firm and sad. "Because it is my fault."

"I think we've established my damnation came from higher up," I said, shooting Castiel a nasty glower that cast a shameful mien along the angel's brow. "Now, would anyone care to explain to me why Dean shouldn't close the gates of Hell? Or why no one has done it yet?"

Sam and Dean exchanged soulful glances in the silence that reclaimed the library. I rolled my eyes and spit smoke, annoyed by the damned quietude that had followed us from Michigan. Just as I was about to repeat my question, Castiel chose to answer it.

"In order to close the gates of Hell, a person must undergo a series of trials," he told me. "Each one weakens the body into a state of disrepair. Once the trials have been completed, whomever undertook the task of sealing the gates will die."

"Why do I get the feeling you know this from personal experience?" I questioned with a smoky breath.

"Because we tried it," Dean said, turning his head to look at me. "And it almost killed Sam."

I glanced over to Sam. I caught a glimpse of remorse before he averted his eyes.

"Then no," I said, shaking my head. "You're not sacrificing yourselves for this."

"What then?" Dean questioned, combative and frustrated. "What are we supposed to do?"

"I don't know," I admitted. "But I suggest we get rolling before Crowley storms the place."

"Dad—" Dean began.

"Your father is right," Castiel interrupted. "The longer we sit, the closer Crowley will get. This is a problem that will take time to solve."

Dean ran a hand down his face and heaved a weighted sigh.

"Alright," he caved. "We gather all we can carry on curses and binding spells and loopholes in demon contracts and get the hell out of here. Lay low somewhere for a while. That'll buy us some time to fix dad and figure out what we're going to do about Crowley. I'll make a hex bag for dad and load up some gear. Sammy, you start pulling books. Cas, you head into town and get us a set of wheels."

"I think Cas has better things to be doing right now," Sam spoke up, contentious and annoyed. Dean gave him an expression somewhere between blank and _I-don't-give-a-fuck_. "You know. Finding a way to re-open Heaven's doors?"

"You break it, you bought it," Dean said as a matter of factly.

"That's not fair," Sam argued. "Cas didn't send… _him_ ," he gestured vaguely towards me, "to Hell. He's the one angel who rebelled. _For us_."

"It's okay, Sam," Castiel said, much to my dismay. He leaned forward, rested his arms on the table (much to Freya's dismay) and knitted his fingers together. "This does seem like a more pressing matter. Heaven can wait a couple more years."

Dean flashed Sam a sardonic grin. Sam rolled his eyes. I gritted my teeth.

 _He's just trying to help._

"I don't need his fucking help."

It was when everyone shot quizative stares in my direction that I realized I had responded to Max – my own personal Jiminy Cricket – out loud.

"Max talkin' again?" Dean asked.

"Yeah," I admitted, flicking more ash onto the floor. I downed my whisky and tossed the butt into the empty glass where it protested with a loud hiss before it extinguished. "Not used to havin' a voice in my head. It's gonna take me a minute to adjust."

"And what's Max saying?" Sam asked, his voice chilly and brusque.

I stared at him, and he stared back. For a minute it felt like we were about to lock horns. The familiar taste of controversy tingled at the back of my tongue as Sam's jaw flexed. For a minute, it felt like old times.

 _This is nothing like old times_ , Max shattered the almost-moment of remembering what it was like to be human.

 _Fuck you, private_ , I spat internally.

 _You gonna tell him?_ Max asked. _How there's only one way out of this, and I'm gunning for you to do it?_

I flashed Sam an acerbic grin.

"To start pulling books."


	16. Let The Good Times Roll

_Sorry about the slow updates, dear readers. I started working on two other fics in addition to experimenting with drabble. So, naturally, I have been working on nothing because apparently my natural response to pressure is to play opossum. Also, this chapter was a stubborn asshole and did not want to come out. But here it is, and I'm hoping you're still here too, and you are both well met._

* * *

 **Somewhere Outside Duluth, Minnesota**

"You know, whenever I say we should go camping more, I'm joking."

Dean's complaint came with an armload of firewood, hauled in from the forest that enveloped us in its lush arms. He dropped the haul beside a freshly made fire pit, dug a good seven feet from a seafoam green and white Shasta camper with cornflower blue curtains and a rusting propane tank.

Dean had been in a sour mood the moment Castiel returned to the bunker in a white minivan.

("A minivan? Seriously, Cas? Of all the cars you could have jacked, you lifted a soccer-mom-mobile?"

"I thought a van would be more conspicuous. I've noriced there are a lot of them. But I didn't lift it. I suppose I could if need be, but I'm not sure I understand why you would need me to lift a vehicle.")

"Yeah, Dean," Sam quipped. He was crouched in front of the pit, constructing a ring of fieldstone at the lip. "We heard you the first fifty times."

Castiel was standing between the parked van and the camper with his head tilted back, his eyes drinking in the trees that surrounded the small clearing we had sought refuge amongst. His expression was thoughtful and awed, like a kid from Florida seeing snow for the first time.

"Never seen a fuckin' tree before?" I asked as I passed him by with an armload of dry branches. Freya trailed after me, but paused when she spotted the angel and greeted him by pushing her snout into his palm. He returned her greeting with an affectionate pat on her head as he lowered his gaze to me.

"I have seen many trees," he told me flatly. "More trees than one human could possibly conceive. But it was always in passing. I never bothered to truly see them." He tilted his head up and around, scanning the birches and maples and oaks and evergreens that surrounded us. "My father made these," he said with astonishment. "They are his creation, and they're—"

"They're just fucking trees, Walden," Dean interrupted, dusting his jacket sleeves of splinters and dirt as he strolled towards us.

"I was going to say breathtaking," Castiel said, ignoring Dean's surly comment but eyeing him all the same.

"At least one of us is enjoying holing up in the great outdoors," Dean grumbled.

"I think you mean Thoreau," Sam piped up.

"What?" Dean shot, turning to look at Sam. Sam turned his head to give him that funny smile he always got when he was about to dispense a tidbit of his expansive knowledge.

"Walden was a book written by Henry David Thoreau," he told his brother, who returned this information with a blank stare. "It was a memoir about his experience living in a secluded cabin near Walden Pond."

Dean blinked, signaling the fun fact hadn't so much as gone over his head as it did reflect off him like light on a mirror. He shook his head and faced Cas again.

"Whatever," he said. "Quit ogling the trees and give me a hand hauling the library out of the…" He paused to cringe and hang his head in a dramatic display of shame. "Minivan."

Castiel nodded obediently and set to work helping Dean transfer boxes of books from the van to the camper. I took my haul of wood to the pit and dumped it on top of Dean's scattered stack, filling the timberland musk with the sound of wood rattling against wood. Sam continued his work, carefully selecting stones from a pile next to the firewood, carefully ignoring me.

After two days of traveling obscure back roads in a minivan, one would think his hostilities would have softened. But they hadn't. Two days and he had hardly spoken a word to anyone, unless it was to put in his two cents on location destinations and hiding places. Camping had been his idea; Crowley would check every seedy motel across every state. The last place he would expect us to land was among the wilderness in northern Minnesota. It was a good idea and I told him this, but he acted like he hadn't even heard me.

I hovered at his side for a moment, and put my hands on my hips.

"Got something on your mind?" I tried.

"Do you?" Sam returned, informing me in so many words that it was up to me to start a serious conversation.

I sighed and bowed my head.

"I'm sorry," I said. Sam abandoned his task long enough to crane his neck to give me a skeptical look.

"For what?" he challenged.

"Dragging you and your brother into this mess," I said. Sam shook his head and grabbed a round stone from the pile.

"Uh-huh," he muttered skeptically. I ambled to the opposite side of the pit so I wasn't talking to his back. I sunk heavily into a green canvas chair, rested my elbows on my knees and slowly rubbed my hands together.

"I should have told you from the beginning who I am. Was."

"No, I get that," Sam said without looking up. "You were right. We probably would have killed you for saying that."

He glanced up at me, his brows raised in expectation, waiting for me to continue. It was then I realized I didn't know how to go on, or if there was anything to go on with. There were so many things that should have been said, but nothing came to mind. My accusation of the angel's hand in my life, how I lived and how I brought up my boys, had cleared my conscious. Even if they hadn't been somewhat responsible with their meddling Fate, I'm not sure I could apologize for raising Sam and Dean the way I did. It wasn't the best way to bring up kids, and it might not have been fair, but that's life, and that was the card we had been dealt. Apologizing for doing something I would do again if I had to would have been a lie, and, demon or not, I wasn't going to hand out empty sorrows.

When Sam grasped this, that I had nothing else to say, he nodded and returned to his task. I sighed and pulled my smokes from my jacket, stuck one in my mouth and lit it.

"You got something to say to me?" I tried. Sam paused. His eyes darted to and fro as he debated this before a faux smile teased the corner of his lips.

"I'm working up to it."

"Goin' on a supply run," Dean announced, stealing our attention as he slammed the van's trunk. He twirled a set of keys on his index finger and ambled towards Sam and me. Castiel followed close behind with the last of the boxes and my traitorous hound on his heels.

"You sure about that?" I quizzed with a raised brow.

"Why wouldn't I be?" he returned, a question that was meant to be rhetoric.

"Because Hell is on our ass," I replied anyway.

"Hell wishes it was on our ass," Dean scoffed in a timbre that would have amused himself were he not still sour about the van and the great outdoors. "I need some civilization before I go Jack Torrance on everyone."

I took to my feet and flicked ash to the forest floor.

"You're not going out there," I said with an authoritative air and a breath of smoke. Dean's expression deadpanned.

"Look, dad," he started as gently as he could, all things considered. "I know you're used to giving orders, and that's fine. I get it. But you were gone a long time. Sammy and me, we're not kids anymore. We've got this shit figured out. So with all due respect, I think we're about done taking orders."

I tried to clench my jaw, but it dropped instead. I might have expected this kind of sass out of Sam, but not Dean. Never Dean.

Castiel paused near me and placed the box between two canvas chairs. Sensing the tension (which had never truly gone anywhere, but fluctuated like a tide), his gaze lifted and shifted awkwardly between me and Dean.

"Need anything, Sam?" Dean asked without turning his gaze from me.

"Nope," Sam replied.

"I'll be back in a few," Dean promised. He turned tail and ambled towards the minivan. I watched, jarred and baffled and angry. How dare he defy me? His own father, and a demon to boot.

 _Have you considered that's why he has a hard time taking orders from you now?_ Max questioned. I sighed heavily, but didn't respond.

A hand of compassion placed itself on my left shoulder. I looked around to find Cas and the flat, empathetic half-smile-half-frown he frequently wore.

"He just needs a little time," the angel told me. "They both do."

I shrugged Cas's hand away with a violent shake and flicked the remains of my cigarette into the empty fire pit. Castiel didn't need another hint. He took my gesture with understanding and moved to one of the canvas folding chairs where he took a seat. His eyes scanned the cardboard box on his right and he carefully selected a green leather bound volume titled _Reincarnation_ , cracked it open and quietly began to read.

I ran a hand down my face before I backtracked to the chair beside the angel and lit another cigarette. Sam disappeared to the trailer and returned shortly with his laptop. He took a seat in his own chair on the opposite end of the pit, booted his computer up, and went back to ignoring me.

 _You just gonna sit there moping about your luck or are you gonna do something about it?_ Max barked, not unlike a drill sergeant. I rolled my eyes blindly grabbed a book from the box.

 _I was getting there_ , I insisted grumpily as I opened the book.

 _Bullshit_.

"Have I mentioned yet how much I'm beginning to hate you?"

Max laughed at my outburst. My eyes snapped up to Sam, who hadn't bothered to look back. Castiel, on the other hand, had drawn his attention from _Reincarnation_ to me, his gaze empathetic and kind.

"What?" I snapped at the angle. He gave me a flat smile but said nothing and instead turned back to his book.

I turned my eyes down to the book open in my lap, but I didn't get a chance to discover what truths it held. My eyes had barely read the title page ( _Crossroad_ _Blues;_ _The Legend_ _of Robert Johnson and_ _Other Tales of_ _Deals With the_ _Devil_ ) a slow line tore across my left palm, causing my hand to tremble and bleed.

It didn't just bleed. It burned worse than fire. Hot. Pure. Familiar.

Angel blade.

I stuck my cigarette between my lips and stared down at my hand, forcing it to still as blood submitted to gravity and trickled down my wrist and disappeared into my jacket sleeve. When the pain ebbed, I was left with a deep cut that ran the length of my palm.

"John," the angel's voice said. I tore my attention from the wound to the angel, who wore a look of concern. Sam peered over his laptop.

"It's nothing," I spoke around my cigarette, shrugging off the sudden injury. "Crowley's going to have to try a lot harder if he wants to get to me."

Famous last words.

They had hardly left my lips when a new pain surfaced. It lacked the heat of a divine instrument, but it was razor sharp. Unlike the hand wound, this new assault was abrupt, and it struck me in the abdomen like a knife to the gut.

Literally.

I looked down and watched my t-shirt absorb wet crimson in a single dot that grew out before it bled down. The injury – the pain and the blood – would have been easier to ignore if it weren't for Max. Demons, they don't feel pain the same way humans do. It wasn't exactly the pain itself that Max shared with me, but the panic that stirred in his mind at the feel of a blade chewing through flesh and muscle, burying itself in my – or his – stomach.

 _Shrapnel_ , his mind screamed, sending a reflex wave rippling through the body we shared. It seized our chest, closed around our throat, tightened every muscle and sent the world spinning in a wave of dizziness.

If I had been a stronger demon – if I had turned _right_ – I might have been able to override it all. At the very least, I might have been able to ignore it entirely; let the "meat suit" suffer while I laughed. But I was a lesser demon. I was as low a demon as a demon could get, and, until recently, I had no practice at keeping my host at bay.

Mid-panic attack is a difficult time to try to regain control.

Castiel slowly rose to his feet and lowered his book to his side. Sam was leaning forward, trying to get a better look as he slowly folded his computer. Freya whined and wandered to my side. She knew something was wrong, but she couldn't do anything about it but lay her head on my knee and watch me bleed.

"I'm fine," I spoke in a gasp.

 _Get a grip, private_ , I barked at Max. _This isn't Afghanistan_.

Max didn't respond. I caught flashes of memory. Max's memory. Hot desert sun. Cloud of brown dust settling around a pile of rubble. Hearing lost to an ominous ringing. The sensation of something sharp eating its way through muscle.

"I'm fine," I repeated like a mantra, more for my benefit than the benefit of Sam and Castiel. "Just a little–"

My words were cut short when I could feel the knife move. Not out. No. The blade twisted, chewing at my insides.

 _Shrapnel!_

Another rush of anxiety clenched every muscle in my body. I lost balance and I slipped to my knees. My book tumbled from my lap, the cigarette from my lips.

Castiel leapt to my side. Sam snapped his computer shut and bounded forward. Freya whimpered with nervous uncertainty.

"I'm fine," I said again, holding my left hand out to stop Castiel from advancing any further. "Don't–"

Words caught in my throat and were carried away by a rush of acid and blood that worked its way up my esophagus. I threw it up in a pitiful display that left me on my hands and knees like a dog.

If there was anything good that came from vomiting, it was the opportunity to regain control. For a split second, the act distracted Max from the panic that had seized us, and I slipped in and shut it down. With Max unconscious, I was left with his blood on my hands and what felt more like a drum stick in my stomach.

The acidic pressure rose again and I threw up more blood.

"Shit," Sam swore apprehensively. He looked to Castiel. "What do we do?"

"I'm not certain there is anything we can do," Castiel said remorsefully. "I don't believe he'll die."

"No," I agreed. I spit a glob of blood and wiped the corner of my mouth with my jacket sleeve. "But Max just did."

"What?" Sam questioned.

"Throwing up blood," I said, my voice muted by the earth I spoke down to. "Sign of internal bleeding." I pushed myself into an upright position and looked up at Sam. "Soon as I'm gone, Max is, too."

"I'm calling Dean," Sam decided, and pulled his phone out of his pants pocket.

"No," I protested. "Dean can't." I paused, lurched forward and threw up more blood. I coughed, cursed God and righted myself. "Dean already blames himself. He doesn't need to see this."

"Your father is right," Castiel agreed. "It would be best if Dean didn't know."

Sam debated this before returning his phone to his jeans pocket with a defeated sigh.

"Right," he mumbled grudgingly. "So what do we do?"

"Figure out what the fuck we're going to do about Crowley," I said with a harsh tone I did not fully intend on using. Sam blinked down at me and took a cautious step back. Castiel kept on with his flat, empathetic look.

"Come up with some good excuses that put me in the woods." My voice was calm this time. Quiet. Resentful. "I got a bad feeling Crowley's just getting started with me."


	17. Inferno

Crowley favored the angel blade; the divine weapon that bit like pure acid, ached beyond all physical barriers and pierced the blackened remains of my soul.

That's how it always started. That's how I knew it was time to head to the middle of the woods to "collect firewood". The minute that holy burn ripped into me, I grabbed an axe and wordlessly wandered into the trees with Freya at my heels.

The first couple of days it was a trip and a trial I endured alone. But on the third day, Castiel followed me with a bottle of whisky and a plastic bucket.

"Fuck off," I growled at him through my teeth as I marched between trees. Freya walked beside me, giving little heed to the angel she had befriended to give me her full attention. She stopped short when I came to a standstill, and sat faithfully at my feet.

I dropped my axe, peeled my leather jacket off with a rigid mein, and carelessly abandoned it on the forest floor. Two deep cuts had already been made on my left bicep, and a third was inching its way across the skin on my right. Dark, crimson blood oozed in fat beads down my arms, but I barely noticed. My attention had been dulled by the hot, white agony of the angel blade.

I leaned forward against a young ash and gritted my teeth. I could hear Castiel's footsteps come to a halt some feet behind me, and, when I expected them to begin a mopey retreat, they took another step forward.

"I said fuck off," I gnarled as a fourth cut tore into my skin, digging deep and slow across my arm.

"Yes," Castiel acknowledged with sincerity. "I did hear you the first time."

"Then what the fuck are you still doing here?" I barked in a whisper with my jaw clenched tightly.

"For support, I suppose," Castiel replied, unsure of his words, which caused him to pause and think about whether he had used the right term. "Someone should be here with you," he continued with confidence. "Dean can't, and frankly neither can Sam. So here I am."

I pushed myself away from the tree and spun around on my heel to face the angel.

"I don't need support," I spat. A short, sharp breath caught in my throat as a fifth incision made its way across the right side of my chest. Weak-kneed, I shuffled sideways until I reached a felled maple – a long, fat old tree – where I sat in a plunge that shook the timber. Freya stuck by me like a bodyguard, careful not to get too close or too far away. She sat to the right of me and stood watch. "I'd… prefer to… experience this… alone."

Castiel gave me a flat smile, wordlessly telling me he didn't believe me. He strolled forward, leaves crunching under his sensible shoes with each step, and took a seat on the log beside me. I rolled my eyes.

Another incision crossed my chest, and I tried to put my mind on something else; the sigh of the trees shifting in a warm breeze, the call of a loon on a nearby lake, the perfume of earth and wood and leaf. My fingers gripped the peeling bark of the tree, my heels dug into the dirt. After a while, when the pain of the immediate assault began to regress, I could feel blood latch onto my t-shirt, the cotton sticking to my skin as the crimson color began to seep through. I grimaced and turned my head to glance at Castiel. He was sitting straight with his left hand wrapped around the neck of the whisky bottle, and his right holding the bucket's handle. "What's with the bucket?"

"I told Sam and Dean I would bring them some water to boil," Castiel said, motioning vaguely through the trees in the direction of the lake. He paused and looked down at the white plastic object, then set it on the ground. "It gave me an excuse to leave camp."

"Nobody asked you to," I snapped. "You should have stayed behind to keep an eye on them."

Castiel smiled a vague smile.

"Your sons will be fine, John," he assured me with the utmost of confidence. "If Crowley was closing in, I don't believe he would bother torturing himself to get to you."

"That's reassuring," I grumbled sarcastically.

The cutting stopped, but this was not a relief. In the two days I had weathered torment at Crowley's hands, I had learned the slashing and the slicing was foreplay. A smug hello and warning of what was to come.

"Please leave," I begged as I braced myself for the anguish that laid ahead of me. Castiel did not move, nor did he acknowledge that he had heard me. He simply sat on the downed tree, patiently waiting.

And then the fire started.

It wasn't a literal fire, of course, but that's what it felt like. It began in my left arm and it quickly traveled my veins, surging through my body until it felt like I was being devoured by flames, only without the sweet relief of death. I half expected the blazing heat to subside after a couple of agonizing minutes, mostly because Crowley had tried this form of torture on me the previous day, and the burn ebbed and flowed in spurts spanning nothing longer than three minutes. This time, though, the heat was relentless. It scorched my blood, burned muscle and bone. It was paralyzing. Breathtaking in a literal and horrific sense.

Holy water. Judging by how long the divine liquid incinerated my very being to the core, I surmised Crowley hadn't just shot himself up with a hearty dose of the stuff. He had hooked himself up to an IV to prolong its tormenting effect.

Somewhere beyond the fire, I could feel my body tremble. I could also feel myself losing balance. My body swayed forward and I slumped towards the ground. I managed to catch myself on my hands and knees as my lips curled in a silent scream.

The fact that I couldn't scream only magnified the agony I was in. Not that I _wanted_ to scream. But pain — raw, unadulterated and excruciating _pain_ — often makes a person (or a demon, for that matter) yearn to expel bits of their anguish through their throat, let it out into the air where it can dissolve and fade away. And it helps, sometimes, even if the effects are minuscule by comparison. Me, I had to keep my mouth shut. Hold in every howl and and scream my body desperately wanted to dispel.

I had to suffer in silence.

But one compassionate hand reminded me that, though I had to endure my torment in silence, it was not endured alone.

I turned my head left where I found Castiel stooping beside me. The lines in his forehead were creased in a worrisome contrition, and his blue eyes shone with empathy. His lips formed a troubled but encouraging smile and his hand lingered on my back, wordlessly telling me that he was there, and he wasn't leaving me.

The angel carefully aided me upright, and didn't complain when I collapsed against him with an inhuman force. I kicked my feet out in front of me and let him half carry, half drag me into an upright position, using the downed tree to prop me up beside the ever watchful Freya. When he was sure I wouldn't slide sideways, he returned to his seat on the log and patiently waited.

My fingers dug through dirt and leaves and grabbed a hold of the earth like my grip was the only thing keeping me from being flung into space. A gasp struggled free from my throat in my efforts to reign in the urge to scream, and my eyes snapped shut. Sweat beaded along my brow as the holy water continued to flood my body with its toxic heat. I found myself calling out to the god that has forsaken me, silently praying for mercy. For water to douse the fire. But my prayer went unanswered and the fire burned on.

Eventually, after a grueling eternity (which was actually closer to thirty minutes), the pain started to subside and, at long last, fade away. I eased my grip on the earth, opened my eyes, and took in a deep breath. Freya, completely aware I had returned from anguish, nuzzled her head under my arm and pressed her head against my chest. I scratched her behind her ears as I drew my legs back so my knees were arched and my feet were flat on the ground.

A clear bottle of amber liquid danced in my field of vision inches from my face, and I turned to see Castiel extending the drink to me. I took it, twisted the cap off and took a long, deep swallow. From the corner of my eye I watched as he extracted my cigarettes and my silver zippo from my jacket pocket. He reached these out to me and, after I had set the liquor bottle on the ground, I accepted these too.

"Thanks," I muttered, both embarrassed by what he had witnessed, and highly conflicted. I hated him.

I _wanted_ to hate him.

But, for some reason, I didn't. Not anymore. I never would again.

I lit a cigarette and sucked in a deep lungful of smoke.

"I'm sorry," Castiel said, and I sighed a smoky sigh.

"It's not your fault," I grudgingly admitted, avoiding his eyes as I spoke.

"I did not set your fate, but I did nothing to stop it," the angel said apologetically. "I am as guilty as my brothers and sisters."

"Is that why you came here?" I asked. "This is some kind of penance for you?"

"Yes and no," he replied thoughtfully. "As I said, you shouldn't have to suffer this alone. You don't deserve this, John."

I thought about the sins of my past, the things I did when I was alive. The people I had gotten killed. The way I raised my sons, and how, perhaps maybe I could have — _should_ have — done it differently. The line between fate and free will was blurry, and I couldn't discern where my actions fell.

"Yeah, well, maybe I do," I scoffed.

"You don't," Castiel said, his tone gentle but firm. Certain. I turned my head to look at him, and he gave me that flat, sympathetic smile he was always giving me. "How do you feel?"

"Like a fucking demon," I grumbled miserably. I took a drag from my cigarette and flicked gray ash that fluttered to the ground like polluted snow. "At least Crowley can only hurt me as much as he wants to hurt himself."

"That is a silver lining," Castiel said agreeably with a nod of his head.

I turned my head down and absently scratched Freya while I smoked my cigarette. There is little solace to be found in peace when you know the same damn fight lingers on the horizon. I found myself again thinking of the finale of this game, and how, no matter what path we took, it would always end the same way; with me dead. The question now was how willing was I to continue to endure Crowley's torture? To let Sam and Dean — and even Castiel — go down on the way there?

"You know," Castiel spoke gently. Solemnly, like he knew what gears were turning behind my eyes. "Your sons are very good at finding an alternate route for an alternate ending."

I glanced up at him.

"You taught them many things," he added. "I think it's their turn to teach you something. Something they taught me." He stood, his eyes still on me. "There's always another way."

I let the words sink in with a slug of whisky. The angel stood before me with his hand extended. I sighed and accepted his offer, letting him pull me to my feet. Freya leapt back with an air of excitement as I stood, carefree now that her duty of watchdog had ended for the day. Castiel handed me my jacket and, as I drew it over my shoulders and zipped it up over the blood soaked shirt, bent to collect my axe.

"I should get the water before Dean wonders where I went," he announced. He handed me the axe and gathered up his bucket. I slung the axe over my shoulder and watched as he wandered towards the lake with Freya frolicking around him. I sighed.

"Castiel!" I called after him, and he turned. "Thanks."

He smiled.

"You're welcome," he said. He started to turn, but paused and added; "My friends call me Cas."

"Let's not get ahead of ourselves now," I said. The angel smiled knowingly and took his leave. And, once he was out of view, a small smile lifted at the corner of my lips.


	18. Losing All Hope Was Freedom

"I swear to god I'm going to go Jack Torrence on all of you."

Nobody looked up at Dean's frustration vent. Sam's eyes continued scanning his computer screen. Cas kept on drinking in his book on reincarnation. And I carried on splitting wood. Freya was the only one who paid my eldest son any mind, and then he only received a brief look of curiosity he couldn't even see.

"You really need to stop saying that, Dean," Sam said in a flat voice.

"I'm serious," Dean spat. He restlessly paced the ground between the camper and Sam with a vivid frustration painted on his face. "I need some goddamn civilization."

"Uh-huh," Sam hummed in a disenchanted disbelief as keys clicked under his fingertips. Dean ran a hand down over his face.

"We've been out here for almost a fucking month," he said. "We're no closer to figuring any of this shit out than we were when we got here." He paused to shoot Cas a scowl. "And Cas is still on the same fucking book," he added, waving a hand at the angel.

"I've read many of the other books," Cas shared without lifting his eyes from the words he held in his palm. "I think this one may hold a clue that will set us on the right path."

"And what clue would that be?" Dean snapped.

"I haven't found it yet," Cas said, turning a page. Dean pursed his lips, put his hands on his hips and bowed his head.

On the outside, it looked like Dean was the only one in a foul mood. Sam's determination masked any frustration he might have felt as he tirelessly plugged on, skimming books and surfing webpages and making regular calls to hunters across the country to see if any of them had seen a woman fitting Mystery's description. Cas was patient. Not just patient; the angel had found utter contentment among the wilderness. ("I think, someday, when Sam and Dean are gone, and I've reopened the gates of Heaven, I might take residence in the wilderness," he told me once after a rough torture session, his eyes on the canopy and a small smile on his face.)

On the outside, even I seemed calm. I forced myself to submit to the ways my sons had learned to live. The search for another way, another end, no matter how long it took. Their determination in that aspect was inspired, and I was proud they had stuck to their convictions.

Except, on the inside, I was growing angry. Restless. Not from frustration, or old habits that wanted me to get a job done right, but fast. It was the torture.

 _We'll make a proper demon of you yet._

It's not really Hell that makes a demon, but the torment a soul undergoes. The second time I fell, I wasn't tortured. Not the way "proper" demons were tortured, with sharp instruments and fire and brimstone and all the other ways a body could be physically brutalized to the point of hopelessness. To the point of giving up.

 _Abandon all hope, ye who enter here._

For the record, accepting your fate isn't giving up hope. It just alters what your hopes are. I never abandoned _all_ hope, but, after five centuries, I had psychologically tormented myself into accepting damnation. Between the sliver of hope for freedom I still held onto and the obscure, self-torture I underwent, I turned… wrong.

And Crowley was trying to fix it.

It took me a couple of weeks to really understand that's what he was doing. He wasn't just trying to hurt me, and he wasn't just trying to force me out of hiding. The King of Hell was attempting to make me like the rest of them.

"I still think we should close the gates of Hell," Dean voiced his opinion, one he had voiced several times in the passing weeks. "Maybe if Hell is closed off, contracts disappear for anyone still alive?"

"That's a nice theory," I said as I set a log upright on a tree stump. "But neither of you are sacrificing yourself for me." I brought my axe down. The log split down the middle and each half flew to either side of the stump.

"That's not hypocritical." Dean paired his sarcastic remark with an eye roll. I paused in my chore to give him my full attention.

"You do not owe me for what I did for you," I told him with a heat I hadn't intended. "You want Hell sealed off, find someone else to do it."

"Not to sound boastful or anything," Sam said, combative. He closed his laptop halfway to participate in the debate. "But, outside of Dean and me, I don't think there are any hunters who have what it takes to pull something like that off. I mean, there are a lot of good hunters out there, but the trials, they're not easy. It's not like closing a literal door."

The word _door_ struck a chord, and danced in my mind with _trials_.

"Cas," I said, resting the axe against the sizable pile of logs I had already split. The angel looked up at me, his eyes slightly unfocused from prolonged staring. "You said you closed Heaven's gates with a series of trials, right?"

"Yes," Cas confirmed with a mild discomfort.

"How do you open a closed door?" I prompted. Cas turned thoughtful.

"It would depend on what type of door you're talking about," he answered. "Some doors open out, while others open in, and some some slide. Then there are revolving doors, which you could debate whether or not they're ever really open or closed—"

"You open it in the opposite direction you closed it," I cut him off when his over-literal philosophies bordered into off topic ramblings.

"And?" Dean said shortly, impatient but curious to see where I was going.

"What if Heaven's gate is like a door?" I theorized. "What if all you have to do to open it back up is to do the trials backwards?"

A thoughtful silence fell around the camp. Expressions turned contemplative and gears turned. And finally;

"That's not a bad idea."

All eyes turned to Sam, who looked genuinely impressed. Not overly impressed, but enough to give credit where credit was due.

"I never thought of that," Cas admitted. He shrugged. "It's worth a shot," he agreed before adding doubtfully; "I may need some help from my brothers and sisters."

"We'll help you, Cas," I told him. "Won't we, boys?"

Sam and Dean exchanged a soulful look.

"Of course, Cas," Sam said. "Whatever you need."

"Thanks," the angel said. "But one thing at a time. Heaven can wait. Let's worry about Crowley first."

He gave me a discrete, knowing smile I returned with a tip of my head.

"Great," said Dean, nothing short of sarcastic, and threw his hands up. "I'm glad we cleared that one up, because now we're still at square one."

I parted my lips to follow his surly comment with one of my own, but the words snagged in my throat when the heat of the angel blade appeared along my forearm. I snatched up my axe and swung it over my shoulder.

"I'm going to get more firewood," I quietly announced and marched for the trees.

"I think we have enough of it," Dean commented as I passed him by, but, in lieu of a response, I whistled for Freya. She bounded after me, alert and solemn.

"I'll go with him," I heard Cas say.

"You, too?" an exasperated Dean called.

"Just let them go," Sam said with a quiet tone.

"No wonder we're not getting anywhere," I could hear Dean grumble as I all but ran for shelter from my son's eyes. "Those two keep wandering off." Pause. "What do you think they do out there?"

"I don't know," Sam lied. "Stop bitching for a minute and give me a hand with this research, huh?"

* * *

I could picture him standing in front of a three way mirror, watching with a smug smile as he mutilated his own flesh to get to mine. Staring at his reflection, but addressing me. "Having fun?" I swear I could hear him asking. "I know I am." Watching with delight as blood spilled down his arms. "I'll break you long before I can break a sweat."

 _I didn't cave to Alastair after a hundred years_ , I told the vision of Crowley, who watched himself bury a salt coated carving knife in his stomach. _It's going to take a fuck of a lot longer than one month for you to even scratch the surface._

The hallucination of Crowley and his three reflections didn't reply; it was not a two-way mirror, after all, and God only knew if what I was glimpsing at was real. Instead, they laughed through the pain, relishing in their own agony, knowing I could feel every grain of salt burning blood and muscle and skin. They flashed a toothy grin, twisted the blade, and laughed again.

"Where are you, John?"

The voice was close, only a few feet away, yet it was worlds away. It was distorted, like an echo in a cave so deep you can't be sure where the sound originated, but it was familiar. Kind. And it was trying to pull me out of the darkness.

My eyes slivered open and squinted up at the luminous being that sat on the felled maple. Just where the haloed creature always was when I was writhing on the forest floor. The calmness in his expression was interrupted by minor wrinkles of concern that gently creased the corners of his eyes.

"I'm sitting in the middle of the woods telling an angel to shut the fuck up." I winced at my own words as I clutched my stomach. My head spun as it leapt between the imaginary room where Crowley gleefully performed his torture and the forest I knew to be real. It swam around the torrid pain that chewed at my insides and blurred the sides of my vision.

"Sorry," I apologized to the angel, who appeared unaffected by my scornful remarks. I sucked in a sharp breath. "Misery loves company."

Castiel nodded in understanding and turned his head forward.

"It may help if you focused on something other than the pain," he casually suggested.

My jaw clenched in an effort to withhold a groan as I could feel the blade turning in slow circles inside of me.

"It'd… be easier if… he wasn't using… erg… fucking salt," I panted between my teeth.

The sharp pain of the knife subsided as it gradually exited my body, and I was left with the heat of the salt that lingered in my stomach. My fingers — slick with blood — curled into hardened fists and I waited for more. Another stab, another shot of holy water. But it never came, and once the fever of the salt ebbed, I tentatively relaxed my muscles.

Like clockwork, Freya nudged her head under my arm to give me a dog's equivalent of a hug. Cas handed me a bottle of whiskey, waited for me to pour a generous amount down my throat, then handed me a cigarette. Just like always.

Except this time my blood stained hands shook as I lit my cigarette. It wasn't a tremor rooted in the waning pain, but the result of an unholy anger I couldn't shake. A fire I fueled with bitter thoughts on my current reality.

Castiel took notice of this. He parted his lips to speak, hesitated, then recalculated what he wanted to say.

"You're upset." It wasn't a question, but it had a questioning quality that wasn't quite directed at me. He was asking himself, in so many words, if this was a wise conversation to be having.

My chest tightened and my fingers clenched into fists. I felt like caged animal who had been prodded one too many times. I felt useless, and I felt like killing something. No, not something. Some _one_.

Crowley.

"I'm gonna fucking kill him!" I growled. I stood abruptly, and Freya whined and backed away. I could feel my eyes go black as I picked up my axe and, in a single swoop, cut down a young maple that tumbled down with a sigh of rustling leaves.

"John." Castiel attempted a calm tone, but the way his muscles tensed, the way he checked the sleeve for his angel blade, I knew he found my outburst troubling. "I know what you're going through right now is arduous…"

"You don't know shit," I snapped. I kicked the tree he sat upon and he leapt up in time to avoid rolling away with the long log, which shifted a good four feet from where it once lay. The angel watched as I heaved the axe at an ancient oak, the blade losing itself in its mighty trunk.

"You know," the angel spoke softly, attempting to calm my rage with his voice. "Going after Crowley is exactly what he wants."

"And that sonuvabitch is going to regret it!" I shouted. I picked up the small tree I had cut and swung it like a baseball bat at another oak. The maple snapped in half, the leaves and branches crashing to the forest floor leaving me with a the long trunk, which I hurled blindly into the forest.

"You need to calm down." Castiel kept trying to pull me back, relentlessly trying to bring me to the light that was quickly fading away from me.

I jabbed my right index finger at the celestial being.

"You don't get to tell me what I need to do," I spat, this time with complete disregard to the harshness of my words. "Mystery is probably dead. We've been stuck in the goddamn wilderness for the better part of a month and the King of Hell keeps stuffing my veins with holy water. So don't you tell me to calm the fuck down."

"You have every right to be upset," Castiel agreed that my rage was, to a certain degree, called for. "But this isn't about anger."

"You don't think I'm angry?" I challenged. I marched to where my axe had landed and ripped it from the tree. "How's this for not angry?" I started hacking at the oak with everything I had, so blinded by anger that I didn't even see the splinters that flew at my face. When I lost my patience on the oak that resisted my strength and refused to fall, I turned my sights on the downed tree I had used as a prop and Cas had used as a seat. I hacked at it until it split in two, then kicked at them until they were several yards from each other. "How about this?" I lobbed the axe at another tree where it took off a chunk of bark and sank to the ground with a dull thud. I grabbed my coat and withdrew my gun, which I aimed at a red squirrel. I discharged round after round until the creature was nothing more than a splatter of fur and blood on a bed of dry leaves. I marched up to the angel and didn't stop until only a few meager, uncomfortable inches separated us. My chest heaved as I glared at him, the cigarette between my lips now a short, smoldering stub. "You don't think this looks like anger!?"

Castiel's brow creased into something somewhere between a frown and concern. He looked past the smoke, stared me straight in my cold, black eyes and said; "It looks like fear."

I sucked in a deep lungful of smoke and exhaled it through my nose as I stared the angel down. The crease in my brow deepened and I leaned in so close to him our noses nearly touched. But Castiel remained unphased by my intimidation tactics. He didn't even blink.

"You wanna run that by me again?" I growled.

"You're afraid," he stated simply. "You're afraid of losing control, and you're afraid that whatever Crowley is doing to you is going to push you over the edge. This doesn't look like anger, John. This looks like fear. This." He waved his hand, motioning to the destruction I had caused. "Looks like losing control."

I glared at the unflinching angel who refused to be intimidated as my mind grappled with this accusation. I was John fucking Winchester. I was a demon. I wasn't supposed to be afraid of anything. But I knew, deep down, Castiel was right. I wasn't angry. I was terrified.

From the corner of my eye I noted Freya, crouching low to the ground under the needles of an evergreen. I turned my head to look at her, and she cowered. Just like she had done with Crowley.

I suddenly became aware of the sound of footsteps thrashing through underbrush and dry leaves. A baritone tentatively calling "dad? Cas?" as they drew nearer. I backed away from Cas, pinched the remainder of my cigarette out and chucked it aside. I blinked the blackness from my eyes and bent to pick up my jacket, making sure my back was turned away from the place Sam and Dean would come through.

"Hey," Sam said as I was pulling my jacket on, his voice no further than ten feet behind me. "Are you two alright?"

"Yes," Cas said haltingly. "We're fine."

"We heard gunshots," Dean said as I was zipping up my jacket. Satisfied I had concealed the blood on my shirt, I spun around to face Sam and Dean. They both held their own guns, down and out, ready to aim and shoot at the drop of a hat.

"That was me," I said unapologetically, slipping my gun – and my bloodied hands – into my pockets.

"What were you shooting at?" Sam questioned, cautiously relaxing his hold on his weapon.

"He shot a squirrel," Cas said. I rolled my eyes at him.

"Why?" Dean wanted to know, scrunching his nose up.

"Target practice," I said before Cas had a chance to respond. Sam and Dean gave me an inquisitive stare and I shrugged. "Didn't want to get rusty."

"You?" Sam said with disbelief. "Get rusty?"

Sam's phone went off as Dean's stance relaxed and he pocketed his gun.

"Next time you wanna shoot rodents, let me know," Dean said. "I'll join you. I need a break from books. I'm starting to see words every time I close my eyes."

Cas and I exchanged a knowing look while Sam swiped to answer his phone.

"Hello?" he said.

"You owe me big time, Winchester," I overheard a female voice spit from the other end. Sam's face twisted into a look of confusion.

"What? I'm sorry, who-?" He paused and a light switched on behind his eyes. He looked up at us and said with disbelief; "Mystery?"


	19. Mystery In Tennessee

**Powells Crossroads, Tennessee**

She told us to meet her in the parking lot of Kelleys Chapel, a modest little church with a stocky steeple, erected in the crook of a quiet county highway and a dirt road. Night had long since fallen by the time we arrived, and was filled with the midnight lullabies of crickets, and the sweet smell of damp grass. Humidity hung in the air, reflecting the silver sheen of the crescent moon to gently illuminate the valley, but cast the distant mountains into shadowy mounds of soft peaks.

The Smoky Mountain air was thickest around the church. At least, it was for me. The holy ground knew I was on the verge of trespassing, and it was unwelcoming. Repelling. Standing on the threshold of the house of worship was like trying to force magnets together; neither of us wanted to be within the vicinity of each other, but Mystery was forcing us together.

Freya was less swayed than myself to stand on hostile soil, and had taken a wary position in a thicket of wild bushes on the other side of the highway. She sat low to the ground with a displeased look on her muzzle, watching us, waiting to leave the god blessed plot of land.

There had been some debate about a trap, a concept no one had really disagreed with. Cas took it upon himself to explore the town in search of demon activity. Sam and Dean took mobile patrol posts around the property with their respective demon-killing blades drawn and readied. Dean strolled the line between asphalt and dirt road, while Sam stood near the highway and a patch of trees that lined one side of the lot. Given my face was the only one Mystery would recognize, I was placed in the center of the lot where I chain-smoked and paced between the van and the line of trees.

"She should be here by now," I grumbled as I flicked a stub of a cigarette to the ground, sending a spray of sparks skidding across the weathered asphalt.

"She'll be here," Sam said with a shaky confidence. A confidence that was starting to whiter as time ticked on without Mystery.

His attention stole away from the church and narrowed down the dark highway. His muscles tensed, sending out warning signals for Dean and me to be on guard. I patted the right pocket of my jacket, making sure my Kurdish blade was right where I had left it, and Dean tightened his grasp on the angel blade. And we waited. Until:

"It's just Cas," Sam reported and we all relaxed. The angel came into view, shuffling his way through the parking lot with Sam at his side. Dean sauntered in and we stood in a loose circle under the stars.

The face Cas wore was troubled and torn.

"I've searched the town," he informed us. "Your father appears to be the only demon here."

Sam winced at the angel's words, the reminder that dear old dad was a demon. Not that he had forgotten; I was, after all, wearing someone else's face. But there was something about hearing it out loud that made him uncomfortable. Something that really rubbed salt in the wound.

"You okay?" Dean asked, and slipped his angel blade between his belt and his denim, having no jacket in the heavy heat to place the weapon.

The angel dismissed Dean's question with an unconvincing, "I'm fine."

"You're a terrible liar," I accused. His brow furrowed.

"That's not entirely true," he said. His expression slackened and he ducked his head. "Although in this case, I suppose that wasn't very convincing."

The three of us stared at him for a minute, waiting for him to go on. When he didn't, Dean rolled his eyes and threw up a hand.

"You gonna share with the class or do we have to pull it out of you?" he said. Cas sighed.

"I reached out to my brothers and sisters," he confessed with humility. "Asking for their assistance in locating an Nephilim."

"An angel-human hybrid?" I asked. "What do you need an Nephilim for?"

"The trials," Cas said. "More of a spell, really," he said thoughtfully, momentarily straying in his thoughts before returning to the conversation at hand. "It calls for the heart of an Nephilim. I thought it would take months, if not years, to track one down, if one even existed."

"You're saying your angel pals actually helped you locate one?" Dean asked with disbelief. Cas nodded.

"I wasn't counting on their assistance," the angel said, equally as baffled as Dean. "They weren't willing to help until I told them I had found a possible way to reopen the gates. After that, I had three cherubs offering me their bows and the location of an Nephilim."

"What about grace?" Dean asked with an accusatory tone. "You find an angel willing to give up his grace?"

"Of course I have," Cas replied, impatient and cold.

Dean opened his mouth to argue, but pursed his lips and hung his head instead.

"That sounds like a pretty damn good thing to me," Sam said, his brows knitted in bemusement. "You look kinda… bummed."

Cas cast a look of guilt in my direction before turning to Sam.

"My brothers and sisters will expect me to test this theory sooner than later. They've already made arrangements for me to fly to the Nephilim," he said, then added, "He's in Oslo."

"And?" Sam said.

"And, that means I can't continue helping you here," Cas explained.

"We're fine, Cas," Dean insisted, quiet but confident. "There are three of us now," he said, throwing a thumb over his shoulder in my direction.

Cas gave me a tentative look.

"Don't look at me," I said, throwing up my hands in guarded defense. Pretending like him leaving wouldn't mean a thing to me. Like I wouldn't miss his company. Like I wouldn't need him to keep my swelling anger management issues in check. "Nobody asked you to stay in the first damn place."

Cas slipped me a discreet smile. I tipped my head at him.

"You're sure you don't need me?" Cas asked, reluctant to leave.

"We got this, Cas," Sam insisted. "Go open Heaven back up."

Cas nodded.

"If you need anything, you can call me." The statement came across as general, but it was directed at me.

"Jesus, Cas," Dean grumbled. "We know. Get out of here already. You can zap your feathery ass back from Oz… whatever when you're done, right?"

Sam smirked his knowing smile and Dean scowled.

"What?"

"Oslo," Sam corrected him. "It's the capital of Norway."

Dean rolled his head along with his eyes and looked to Cas.

"You can zap your feathery ass back from _Norway_ when you get your wings back, right?" Dean asked with an air of frustration at Sam's persistence at correcting his older brother, frustration that was linked to a hint of skepticism.

"Yes," Cas quickly replied. "Of course." He nodded and took a step back. "Goodbye then."

The angel turned and headed for the highway. He stopped to give Freya a farewell pat before he pressed on down the road, and we watched him until he vanished into the haze.

"That was weird," Dean observed.

Sam spared me a knowing glance. While Dean was not oblivious to the friendship Cas and I had developed, only Sam knew the depth of it. The meaning behind it, and why the angel had been so hesitant to leave.

"Yeah, Dean," he said without skipping a beat. "Cas is kind of weird. I think that's been established." He paused. "You think he's going to use his own grace, don't you?"

"Wouldn't you?" Dean replied with a dash of remorse for his friend.

"What do you mean, _use his own grace_?" I asked.

Before either of them could reply, the sound of leaves rustling and twigs snapping commanded our attention on the trees behind us. We spun around and watched and listened. I gripped my knife, but didn't withdraw it. Dean plucked his blade from its jerry-rigged sheath, and Sam held his up and out. The thrashing and crunching drew closer and louder until the bushes and the trees spat out a thin woman with aquamarine hair.

Mystery. Her long hair was oily and snarled, her mascara pooled under her eyes and streaked down her face like black watercolor. She was dressed in the same outfit she had been wearing when we first met, but it was rumpled and torn, and crusted with blood and sweat. A legion of cuts marred her intricate tattoo work, parading around her arms and her chest, with one stray that had lashed at her face across her left cheek. She clutched the strap of a tired looking black backpack in her left fist and, clenched even tighter in her right, she held a crowbar.

Sam and Dean looked to me for a reaction, and relaxed when my expression confirmed she was who we were waiting on, and, more importantly, that she was not a demon. They lowered their weapons as Mystery marched at me with a fire in her blue eyes. She dropped her backpack to grip the crowbar with both hands, and, as she closed the gap between us, she raised it above her head.

"You son of a bitch!" she growled, and brought the blunt object down, intent on cracking my head open. I reached out and caught the instrument with my left palm. I could feel my eyes go black as we stared each other down, and what I saw when I looked into her eyes was not fear, but raw anger.

I closed my hand around the bar, intent on ripping it from her grasp. And then I noticed the burning sensation in my palm. I looked up in time to watch smoke rise between iron and flesh and had no choice but release my grip. Mystery swung the crowbar back for inertia, and drove it against my shoulder.

Sam and Dean were on her before she could get another strike in, each picking her up by an arm and lifting her as they carried her back. Mystery kicked her feet like she was peddling a bike and thrashed her upper body with a force that surprised both Sam and Dean. They set her down before they dropped her, but didn't let her go until Dean had wrestled the crowbar from her grasp.

I tried to blink the blackness from my eyes, and found it more difficult a task than normal. Between the contact with iron, the assault and the church, the demon part of me was choking for air.

 _Not here_ , I commanded myself. _Not fucking now._

The blackness receded as Dean held Mystery back in a half hug.

"Woah, there," he said. "Settle down."

"Are you fucking kidding me?!" Mystery fumed. She gave up her struggles, but refused to give up her temper. Instead she backed off a step and puffed out her chest as her eyes locked on me. "Crowley took me prisoner because of you! Look what he did to my tattoos!"

"Wait… what?" Dean said, thrown off by her priorities.

"Do you have any idea how much time and money went into these?" Mystery questioned. She gave her destroyed ink a baleful look. Sam and Dean exchanged a hesitant look.

"Are you… okay?" Sam asked haltingly. Mystery shot him a scowl to end all scowls, and Sam — the professional monster hunter who had almost a full foot and at least a hundred pounds of pure muscle on her — shrunk back.

"Right," he said. "Um. I'm-"

"Sam," Mystery cut him off. "Yeah. Gathered that by the sound of your voice." She paused to look at Dean. Her eyes softened at his appearance. "Which makes you Dean." The venom returned when she fixed her gaze on me. "And _you_ are not who you said you were, _John_."

"I was trying to keep a low profile," I told her, rubbing the spot where the crowbar had struck me.

"How's that working out for you?" she sneered, sarcastic and rhetorical.

"Not as well as it was," I replied anyway, adding an exaggerated grin. Mystery sneered before she tried to compose herself by drawing in a deep breath.

"We gonna do this or what?" she asked without enthusiasm.

"Do what?" Dean asked with furrowed brows. Mystery made a broad gesture with her left arm.

"Play damsel in distress," Mystery replied with an eye roll. She pointed to herself. "Damsel." She pointed at the three of us. "Knights. White…" She pointed at the vehicle parked behind me, and her face fell into puzzled amusement. "Minivan?" Her tone fluxed from annoyed to amused when she spied the van parked some yards behind us. She fought hard against a smile and lost to a grin. "A fucking minivan?" she laughed. "Seriously?"

Dean flushed and pursed his lips.

"I thought you guys drove an Impala?"

"We do," Dean said quickly. "This is just… a long story. Come on, damsel," he quickly said. He scooped up her backpack and slung it around his shoulder. "Let's get you to a castle."


	20. Wrong Turn

_This chapter is dedicated to GrammarDemon, who was kind enough to bing-read this entire story, and leave copious reviews to kick my ass back into writing gear. I know it's been a while, but I have not abandoned this tale and I am determined to finish it! Thank you to everyone still with me, and to those of you who just got here. :)_

* * *

"Tell us a story."

I spoke around the unlit cigarette between my lips, and I spoke to Mystery.

She was sitting beside Dean on the end of a queen sized bed. Her hair was damp and combed straight, her eyes accented in a fresh coat of black makeup. The swells of her breasts were covered with a turquoise bra, her pelvic area protected by black panties, and the rest was skin and ink and attitude. Her eyes narrowed at me, as sharp and as bitter as a Minnesota winter, then suddenly relaxed so her lips could curl up in an insincere smile.

"Gee, we're all real sorry we got you mixed up in this shit show," she said.

"Hell's Most Wanted risking their hides to come pick your ass up isn't sorry enough?" I replied with matched frostiness. Mystery stared me down like she was trying to will me to burst into flames.

"No, she's right," Sam stepped in. He pulled a chair out from under the plywood desk in one corner of the shit motel room, dragged it across the sad, cigarette-burned carpet. He parked it between the bed and my post against the wall, and straddled it as he fixed his trademark puppy-eyes at the nearly-naked damsel. "We're really sorry we got you caught up in this. Right?"

He turned an expectant gaze on Dean. Dean hardly noticed, his focus almost entirely on his first-aid set-up; a bottle of whisky, two washcloths, a hooked needle, and fishing line.

"Mmhmm," he replied in an absent hum as he threaded the needle.

Sam rolled his eyes, then turned his gaze on me. I lit my cigarette, folded my arms across my chest. His face fell into annoyed disappointment before his brow folded into a wordless question: _what's wrong with you?_

Residual church holiness residue. Torture paranoia. The _wrongness_ that ripped through the air with its claws and bore down on the back of my neck with its fangs.

Take your fucking pick.

Freya nudged me with her muzzle, then sat, almost on my foot, and leaned into me. Protecting. Whether it was she or I who was supposed to be the protector, I couldn't tell.

I stroked her head between her ears, but she didn't relax it against me like I half expected her to. She startled at my touch, and, though she allowed it, kept a watchful eye on the door, on the window. On Mystery.

"I can really feel the love," the damsel said with sarcastic enthusiasm.

"I'm gonna dab the infected ones," Dean announced to Mystery, warning. "And then I'm gonna stitch _that_ up." He motioned to a sizeable gash that had been torn into her side, right across an intricate tattoo of _Yggdrasil_ , the Norse Tree of Life. Mystery nodded indifferently. Her gaze wandered, a mask of boredom covering her anxious search of protection. She relaxed when she spied the salt scattered along the door and windows in tight lines, and the barely-visible trap painted on the ceiling at the back of the room.

"So, um." Sam began, then abruptly paused. He smiled slightly to himself. "I'm sorry, we don't actually know your name. We've, uh." Chuckle. "We've been calling you Mystery."

"That's as good a name as any," she replied, casual but delighted. "Let's stick with that."

"Okay then," Sam said. " _Mystery_. Can you tell us–"

"A story?" she cut him off, shooting me a scowl. "About my time at Camp Crowley."

Dean patted a whiskey soaked washcloth along one of her abrasions. Her expression didn't waver, and she did not hiss at the sting of alcohol dancing on an open wound.

"You don't have to talk about it now if you don't want," Sam assured with gentle empathy.

"I took off when _he_ painted the third floor red," she swiftly launched into her tale, more or less telling Sam to fuck off with his sympathy. "I was halfway to the marina when Crowley caught up with me. Had me locked in a basement in an abandoned asylum. Insert lengthy torture scenes where Crowley is either trying to pry information I don't have out of me or he's just bored." She flashed Sam an insincere grin.

Dean dabbed another wound with alcohol, and another. Mystery continued to not flinch or gasp. Sam caught her lack of response, and his brows knitted in curiosity.

"Is there anything else you can tell us?" he asked, trying – and failing – to avoid laying the empathy on too thick.

"Not really," she said with a shrug. "I was pretty much strapped to a plank of wood the whole time." Impervious. She sounded utterly unmoved to her time in the king's custody. _Sounded_. But when she looked at me, no matter how icy or thorny her eyes appeared, there was that wisp of darkness. That tale she did not want to tell.

"Although sometimes I got a break and they chained me to a bed," she added as an afterthought. "Good times."

"What about your escape?" I asked. I pulled myself into an upright position and took the smouldering cigarette from between my lips, flicking ash to the floor. I exhaled a plume of smoke and, in that same breath, said with a skeptical voice; "How did _you_ give Crowley the slip?"

Mystery shot me a look that could kill as Dean knelt in front of her, using caution as he approached.

"I'm gonna…" He cleared his throat. "The one above your…?"

Mystery glanced down at him and offered a sly smile, maintaining eye contact as she slipped her bra a little further down than was necessary. I could only imagine the coyote grin that was probably plastered on Dean's face as he leaned forward, closer than he needed to be, and gently dabbed the slice that interrupted her infinity tattoo. I rolled my eyes.

"Who's name used to be here?" Dean asked as he patted the wound a few more times than needed.

For a split second, Mystery froze.

"Ulric," she replied, dazed, like she'd taken a nasty blow to the head. "My brother. Twin, actually."

"You two get matching tattoos?" he casually teased.

"No," she replied, collected, casual, the moment of chagrin stuffed back into the darkest regions of her soul. "But mostly because it's generally frowned upon to tattoo a corpse."

Dean paused and shot a quick glance up at her.

"I'm sorry," he muttered, embarrassed but understanding.

"Everyone's got that someone, don't they?" she said with a shrug of almost convincing indifference. "That person who writes your contract as a hunter in blood."

Silence swept a winter wind through our bones, and we all bowed our heads as the memories surfaced in the aftermath.

Mary.

Dean took up the whiskey bottle and drew it to his lips. The amber liquid sloshed against the clear glass as he tilted it back, and he took a long, hard pull. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and cleared his throat.

"While I'm down here, I'm gonna stitch that up," he said, nodding to the gash on her side as he reached around her for his threaded needle. He re-soaked his whisky rag and applied the alcohol to the laceration, its jagged aura temporarily rising above the tobacco and mildew.

A guttural whine rumbled in Freya's throat. She turned pleading eyes up to me, begging me to take her away from that place. To take all of us away from that place. I gathered the final hits of my cigarette deep into my lungs and pinched out the smouldering cherry between my fingers.

"While he's down there, maybe you could tell us that story where you escaped from Crowley," I said, my words all smoke and impatience, and I folded my arms across my chest.

"Honestly?" she said as she dipped her upper half back on the bed, propping herself up on her elbows for Dean to get a cleaner view of the damage. "It was utter dumb fucking luck."

We all watched as Dean pierced her flesh with the hooked needle, and we all watched her not react. Sam arched a curious brow at her, and if she noticed, she didn't care.

"How so?" Sam pressed, his attention split evenly between past and present; what had happened and why Mystery seemed unaffected. Ears open, eyes on every aspect. Taking everything in like the professional killer I raised him to be.

"First of all, demons are idiots," she said, turning her head down to watch Dean patch her up. "Second, after Crowley finally grasped the concept of me not knowing anything useful about the three of you, security on me started to relax pretty fast."

 _Wrong_.

"If he knew you didn't have what he was after, why didn't he let you go?" Sam questioned.

"Or kill you?" I added flatly.

Mystery's lips displayed a sarcastic smirk, but her eyes were far away.

"He liked me," she said, distant, almost dreamy (in a nightmareish sort of way). "By which I mean he enjoyed torturing me." She paused, letting her gaze fall to Sam. "I was his toy. His-" The next word died before it reached her lips, and she swallowed it. Smile. "Demons really seem to like me for some reason."

"Out of curiosity," Dean spoke up, his eyes focused on his steady hands, pushing the hook in, pulling fishing line through, repeat. "How exactly _did_ Crowley torture you?"

" _Dean_!" Sam quickly scolded, throwing his hands up. Dean returned his brother's disapproval with a brief _what?_ expression before turning back Mystery.

"You don't have to talk about it if you don't want to," Dean assured her. He tied off the last of the stitches and looked up into her eyes. "It's just, I've been pouring whisky in your wounds, and I just put fifteen stitches in you and you haven't even flinched. I'm just curious how someone who can't feel pain can be tortured."

Mystery smiled the smile of her namesake, peppered it with falsity, and shot it at Dean.

"That is entirely irrelevant at the moment," she replied, cold. "In fact, it's irrelevant always. Can I put my pants on now?"

"I gotta do the other side," Dean replied, getting to his feet to reposition himself on her left. Mystery groaned and rolled her eyes.

"The escape?" I pressed, testy and tense. Like hearing her story would somehow alleviate the growing discomfort Freya and I shared.

"I'm gonna let you guys in on the actual deets, but in the future, if anyone asks, be vague and pretend like I actually Houdini'd my way out of there," she said, flustered, but whether it was the prod into her personal life or easily slipping through Crowley's fingers, I don't know. "So, the other day after a fun little torture session, the demon in charge of putting me back in my 'room' didn't quuuuuuuite secure my cuff."

 _Wrong._

"When I came to and realized it wasn't locked, I got up and went to the door. No one was guarding it—"

 _Wrong._

"— so I open it and peek down the hall. Not a demon in sight."

 _Wrong._

"I snuck around for a bit, keeping low, but after a while I realized I was the only one there."

 _Wrong._

"It was like they all just got up and left." Mystery peeked down at Dean to monitor his progress. "I found the front entrance and all my shit was there."

 _Wrong!_

Sam and Dean picked up on this and exchanged a knowing look.

"That's not suspicious at all," Dean muttered, sarcastic. "Sounds more like they let you go."

"Ya think?" Mystery acknowledged. "I grabbed all my shit and got the fuck out of there. Dug the tracker out of my phone. Did you the courtesy of making sure I wasn't being followed before calling you."

 _But you are being followed._

 _But how?_

Didn't matter how. All that mattered was leaving.

"We need to go," I said, standing upright as I unfolded my arms. "Get dressed. We can finish patching you up in the van."

"I'm almost done," Dean said distantly, brushing off my urgency, but not altogether abandoning it.

It was the spark in a room filled with a gas made up of every goddamn minute of that evening. My son's continued lackadaisical approach to my commands blew that room apart, and the flames licked my eyes until they were black. A deep, bullish exhale fumed out my nose, my fists clenched. Jaw tightened.

"You might think you're not being followed," I said, stern words uttered in a husky growl. "But you are. We need to figure out how, but we can't do it here. So." I jabbed my arm out, pointed to the door. "Get. The fuck. In the van. Or I will drag you out." I paused to rapidfire commanding, burning looks at Sam and Dean. "All of you."

Dean pretended to ignore me, but his hand became hurried in the task he was so adamant to finish, and Sam. Sam rolled his eyes.

"Jesus Christ," muttered Mystery. She batted Dean aside and stood up. "Do I at least have time to put some pants on?"

Rhetorical. Bordering on challenging. So confident I was all bark and no bite.

 _Don't you fucking do it, you sonuvabitch. She's innocent._

I watched through narrowed eyes as she sauntered to her backpack, which was sitting upright at the head of the bed. I watched as she unzipped the sack and dug deep, shifting an assortment of items and clothing to one side, then the other. I watched her withdraw a rolled-up pair of dark blue jeans, watched her unfurl them with a casual flick of her wrist, watched the coin as it became dislodged from its hiding spot in the folds of denim and sailed, glistening and free, across the room.

The coin was foreign, and old. Not just old. _Ancient_. Stamped upon the uneven face was the image of a horse in mid jump over the letters CVN. The back bore a C and an A, followed by what looked like a wheat stalk, and the letter M. Time dripped from its crude, rust gold pores, swollen with ancient stories. Tales of olde, and songs of magic.

It landed with a muted thud in the carpet between Dean and the door, and absorbed all sound in the room. We stared at it with nauseating fascination, like it was a bomb, and one wrong move could detonate it. Coins like that, they were used for two things; museum displays, and witchcraft. When we turned our wide eyes and arrhythmic heartbeats to Mystery, it was clear she understood this. What was made even more clear was the matter of the coin's ownership… and it was not hers.

Mystery jammed her legs one at a time into her jeans, and yanked them up as fast as she could before diving for a shirt. Dean ceased all order and shoved everything into the duffel without care. Sam stood with an abruptness that toppled his chair to the floor with a dull thud. Instinct drove his hand to his chest where his demon blade usually was, then his hips and the butt of his jeans until his fingers made confirmation his weapon was still with him. His long legs took him to the desk in two hurried strides where he drew out Mystery's confiscated crowbar, which had been hidden underneath. At first he held it extended, like he was passing it to her, then tossed it in an effort to treat her as the equal her demeanor demanded (or maybe it was because he, all six feet and four inches of professional muscle and mind, was actually a little more scared of Mystery than he was of demons). She caught it in one hand as she pulled her boot up with the other, and Dean cocked a half smile.

"Is it wrong that kind of turned me on?" Dean asked no one in particular, his voice low but not quiet, his eyes on Mystery as she slung her weapon over one shoulder, and her backpack over the other. Sam scoffed a humouring half-laugh as his brother shouldered the duffle.

"This is neither the time nor the place," I scolded, anxious to hit any backroad anywhere out of town.

That was when the wires in the walls began to hum. When the lights dimmed and brightened in ominus and rhythmless flickers. My eyes cast up at the fixture on the ceiling, hoping against hope for an honest to god electric malfunction, but no. That wasn't it, not by a long shot. Freya lifted her rear and stood just an inch above my side, wary, protective. Angry.

"Christ," Dean said, rolling his eyes as his head tilted to the side. "You don't need to get pissy about it."

A growl came from low in Freya's throat, and she sunk down on her haunches.

"That's not me," I said with a heavy tone, and I my kurdish knife free, ready to feed it.

A savage wind screamed outside the door, and the world beyond the curtain and the window blackened, too dark even for night. Then, as suddenly as it came, it stopped. And the quiet that followed was horrible. It wasn't the calm before a storm; it was too quiet for that. It was the unsound Death made before battle. The silent call for blood.

And tonight, the blood it shrieked for was ours.


	21. To War

Mystery was first to split the silence.

"I really fucking hate you guys." Her offhanded complexion turned to rubber, and she wore it over the dread that the screaming blackness had left in her. The sullen mask would have been convincing, too, had her knuckles not paled in her grip around her crowbar. Had she not shivered in her trepidation, in the one thing she could feel.

My boys kept a calmer composure, but there was concern behind eyes that stared in wait at the door. Freya's attentions too had settled on the door, and she stood ready. Her haunches were low to the floor, her body rigid, waiting for the word to spring forth in a brilliant and protective attack.

Me, my blood was boiling. My tarnished soul suddenly starving. Any urge to flee swept away in the desire to medicate my fever with mayhem. To feed my empty core the only thing it craved; blood.

"Think the parking lot is clear?" Sam asked his brother, freeing his knife from his back pocket.

"Hell no," Dean replied.

"Yeah," Sam agreed. "Me either." His lips pursed, his brow folded into apprehension and careful thought. "Monument?"

Dean bobbed his head from side to side, tangled in self debate.

"Yeah," he gradually agreed, and squared his shoulders.

"Would you like to share with the class what _Monument_ means, or should I just wait and be surprised?" Mystery spat in agitated sarcasm.

"We were under siege in Monument, Colorado," Dean explained, reluctantly turning his head from the door to give the surly ghost hunter his attention. "Demons. We ended up letting them in. Trapped em and exorcised em."

I scoffed, folded my arms across my chest.

"You want to lure god knows how many demons in here to exorcise them?" I criticized.

"You got a better idea?" Sam challenged flatly. Rhetorical.

"Yes," I replied, and drew my Kurdish blade from my jacket pocket. My mouth revealed a toothy grin, dark in its delight. "Kill every last one of those sons of bitches."

"And if Crowley's out there?" Sam proposed with a raised brow of skepticism.

"He's not out there," I told him with easy confidence. "He's cruel, not stupid."

"But if he is?"

"I'll do what I have to do."

Sam nodded, then bowed his head, bringing locks of golden brown hair sweeping against his cheek. His jaw tightened and his eyes darted back and forth, focused on what was in his mind and not the peach carpet at which he seemed to stare.

Dean, on the other hand, gave into reaction over thought. He turned to me with a stern brow folded over determined eyes.

"Nobody is killing Crowley," he growled, sending a commanding look that lingered on me before he passed it to Sam. "And nobody is charging half-cocked into an army of darkness."

"I make no promises," Mystery said, twirling her iron bar in a sardonic show.

"Is that an order?" I challenged, dismissing Mystery's comment with a cold breath. Dean's face curled in anger and in pain.

"You are not killing yourself after all this." His gravel voice tinged with the sorrow he was too proud to pronounce.

"We don't have time for this conversation," I snorted. I craned my head to the window, telling myself I was searching for signs of activity to make me feel better about the fact I was turning away from my boys.

Sam looked up, the light glistening against a thin mist that had gathered across his eyes.

"When then?" His words were filled with a quiet rage that was just getting started. "When do we have time for this conversation? After you commit suicide?" Knuckles whitened over the demon knife he gripped as his brows furrowed. He swallowed. "Do you think we would have followed you all this way if we knew you were just going to give up?"

"They're not expecting us to charge," I snapped in defense, shooting Sam a sharp glare. Irritated. Blinded by my demonic compulsions, my willingness to sacrifice myself. Again. "Element of surprise."

"No," Dean said, shaking his head. "We're not going out there. Not until we get a better idea of how many minions Crowley sent and how to get them in here."

I was set to object, my mouth halfway opened, the words halfway up my throat, when the sound of fracturing glass cut through the room. Shards of windowpane blew against the curtain with rapidfire thuds, and, in a dramatic display of fluttering fabric and smoke, gave up a black, tube-shaped object that belched a blinding red fog.

"Yeah, let's just stay in here where it's nice and safe," Mystery said brusquely before shielding her mouth and nose in the crook of her elbow.

No more options. No more time. It would have to be my way, or it would be death. And goddamn I was practically giddy about it.

"Open the door!" I shouted into the rising smog that filled the room in an ominous hiss. "Let Freya out!"

Dean made a dive for the door, his left arm swatting the smoke in front of him as he went, distorting it into crimson curls that danced around him like blood fire. Salt sprayed up from the floor when his boot severed the protective line in one hard stomp, then sank into the carpet with the opening of the door.

"Freya, kill!" I shouted.

She did not need to be told twice. The hound had sprung for the door halfway through the sound of her name. There was a low growl caught somewhere deep inside her chest, but she made no other sound as she disappeared into a thick cloud. I wondered briefly what it looked like from the outside, the red smoke spitting out a hellhound with gnashing teeth and terrible claws. The twisted look of horror on the demon's face as he screamed, the blood that fountained from his neck...

"The object is to make it to the van," Dean instructed, more to me than anyone else. " _Alive_." He was little more than voice now, the smoke choking the room in its rouge vapor. The duffle over his shoulder was a dark blob, his shoulders a silhouette. A shadowy movement in my peripheral told me Sam was nearby, a cough confirmed Mystery's presence.

I wish to all the gods that ever existed that my mad sprint to the door, my desperation to be first one out, was sourced entirely out of parenthood. That the only thing that drove me forward was my position as protector, and that its power was so great that I trembled with it. And a fraction of it was the instinct to safeguard. Mostly, though, it was the adrenalized rattle of a boozehound about to taste his first drop of liquor in the morning. The maddening thirst for blood, and the idea it would soon be quenched.

I surged through the smoke and, when I broke into the clearing – into a star spotted night, sour with sulfur and thick with humidity – I stopped. I counted three, six, twelve, twenty demons scattered about the parking lot, their eyes devious and black. There were two more writhing in tatters on the blacktop a few yards away, and another pair cantering from Freya's advances. Twenty-four. Piece of cake.

A grin, bloodthirsty and conceited, spread across my lips as I held my Kurdish blade up in a flashy show. An invitation to just try and fucking take me and my boys. ( _Please_ , I _want_ you to _try_.)

And suddenly there was pain.

The initial jab wasn't so bad; it was swift, clean in cut, steady in hand. It wasn't really even the feel of a blade's hot teeth chewing through flesh and muscle that got me. What got me was the weapon's target, the organ where it had lodged itself, and the consequences of the puncture.

Crowley wasn't here, because he was some place safe. Someplace far, far away. Making damn sure I would go down without a fight.

 _No._

My right lung filled, drowning in blood that pushed up my throat and poured from my lips.

 _No no no no_ _ **no**_ _! Not now!_

I summoned every ounce of determination the strike hadn't carried away with its horrific pain and panic that came with a chest tightened by oxygen deprivation. A grimace swept over my face, my jaw tightened, my blade trembled beneath my fingers. Taking a single step was like trying to run underwater, and a single step was all I could take. A second stabbing sensation violated my chest, my left lung this time, but this assailing weapon was thinner. Hollow.

Needle.

 _Sweet fucking Je–_

Liquid fire washed away any remaining air, burned the alveoli, the bronchiole, the pleural membranes and fluids. Threatened to burn down the whole goddamn lung before it erupted, mixing with blood in my trachea and spewing forth in a spray of lava and smoke.

Time slowed to a febel crawl as I descended to my knees. My knife slipped from hand, clattered against the asphalt, close but so far away. A swirl of disturbed smoke tumbled around my shoulder as it gave way to Dean. He paused for what realistically could have only been a fraction of a second, just long enough for him to calculate the counterattack. His duffle slid from around his shoulder, landing on the ground with a clank and a thump, as he marched forward with his angel blade brandished and his face set in stone.

Sam was next to belch forward from the smoke. His tall stature lurched in a hacking fit upon landing, nearly toppled over. He regained control with an urgent swiftness, turned his watery eyes on the scene before him. Took in the sight of a third demon being ripped apart by a force he couldn't see, the vision of the remaining twenty-one demons that were descending. His hair shook around the sides of his head as he craned his neck to me.

I wanted to tell him not to worry about me. Wanted to scream _leave me, save yourself and kill as many of these fuckers as you can on your way out_. But all that would come out was scalding blood.

Alarm took over his face as he stared at the claret flowing from my lips in a steady stream, the widening stain that soaked my shirt where Crowley had stuck the knife. He hesitated, instinctively compelled to rush to my aid, even turned his body to me. That was when Mystery leapt forth with her backpack and her crowbar, and collided with him. Sam spilled sideways, stopping himself from crash landing with an awkward hop and the flailing of his arms. Mystery staggered backwards, her eyes streaming black tears down her cheeks, her chest heaving desperate breaths of clean air.

"Goddamnit, Winchester!" she growled. I caught her eye for a brief moment and she scoffed before giving Sam a hard shove. "He's the only one here whose definitely making it out of this alive."

She raised a leg to let forth a solid kick, seemingly at Sam. The jolt, however, was delivered a short degree to the side, her true target a demon wearing a pretty young woman. The sole of her boot made contact with the demon's stomach, causing the Hell bitch to double over and teeter back, more stunned than hurt. Mystery took the time time to shoot Sam a dirty look before she curved her iron bar in a wide arch that came down on the demon's skull with a vicious crack. And then they were gone, striking and stabbing their way through the warzone.

My body made a violent attempt for breath, and responded with a hideous gurgling of liquid before it spewed black against the night. Darkness crept into my vision, gathering slowly at the sides. I was drowning in fire and blood, but I wasn't dying. There was no mercy like that for things like me.

I fell between the cracks of chaos and mind-numbing agony, tumbling vulnerable from faculty and function. There was enough left in me to take a sickly swing at a gang of demons advancing upon me, but not enough to strike, and not nearly enough to recover from a bone snapping jab to the ribs. On reflex, my lungs gasped for air, and again I gagged and spewed blood that stained my tongue with a metallic taste. This got a good laugh out of them, the five-ish that had been appointed to drag me in. They encircled me, howling as a demon wearing a kindly old woman threw a right hook into my side. I could feel the jagged snap of another rib somewhere beneath the terrifying sensation of suffocating and burning without end.

The group disbanded before anyone else could get a chance to have their fun, scattering in different directions as Freya vaulted into the circle. She chose a victim by tackling him from behind, pushing him to the ground where she all but unhinged her jaws to get them around his skull, and clamped down.

The darkness pulled itself in thin sheets across my vision, the measure of time continued to evade. I remember seeing the hazy outline of Dean and demon, Dean's face contorted in a snarled yell, the demon's face arranged in horror as an orange light illuminated his skeleton from the inside out, the angel blade sunk in his neck. I remember spying Sam's gritted face as an anvil of a fist clobbered him in the side of his head, and Mystery swinging her crowbar back, her lips curled in a warrior's yell. I saw it, but it stuck in my mind as a still-frame; a blood-based watercolor on depravity and death.

Hands grabbed at me, seizing me by my arms, the back of my neck, my head. They forced me to feet that refused to hold my weight, propped me up with their raw strength. The sound of metal scraping pavement rang in my head, and a demon wearing a brunette man pulled into view. He held a vulgar smile, and my Kurdish knife.

"Hold onta this for me, would ya?" he asked in a southern drawl.

I had hardly registered what was going on when he drove the blade to its hilt into my shoulder. A wave of electric heat came crashing through my arm. My chest struggled for air, and my lips ejected frothy blood and holy water. They, the three, maybe four demons, whooped and hollered in savage glee.

Their hold on me fell away, and I crumpled to the ground with a dull wallop. The back of my head bounced off the pavement, burst open in a jagged line. Another round of barbaric laughter resonated as a solid grip seized a fistful of my hair, then yanked me back, dragging me away from the battle. My brain sent orders to limbs that would not, _could_ not comply; in the chaos and the torment, I had slipped deep into paralysis. I was powerless to free myself, useless against the demons that swarmed my boys. Unable to rescue Mystery from the snug, arm-pinning hold that trapped her in an embrace she thrashed wildly against.

The menacing doom of Sam and Dean and Mystery was the last thing I saw before the blackness took complete hold. I tumbled into the depths of the red sea Crowley had created for me, plunged down into the crimson abyss of this fresh Hell. And, as I sunk, submerged in suffocation and pain and regret, I began to abandon all hope.

* * *

 **Special shoutout to celinenaville,** **Trucklady53 and** **mckydstarlight for sticking with me, reviewing, and for general awesomeness purposes; thank you!**


	22. Get Up

_For celinenaville 3_

* * *

 _Get up._

A whisper in the crimson void. Nearly inaudible.

 _Get up._

 _Who's there?_

No reply. Not to the disoriented questions pondered as I suspended in my own personal Hell, forever burning without fire. Drowning without dying.

The voice came again.

 _Get up._

It snowballed, growing in girth as it sprayed fragments of frigid murmurs that echoed:

 _Get up._

… _giving him exactly what he wants._

 _Abandon all hope..._

… _always another way._

 _Get up!_

The abyss crowded with voices gossiping out of turn, leaving ghosts of their words in their wake.

 _John fucking Winchester._

… _make a proper demon of you yet._

 _GET UP!_

I shot to the surface with a second (and highly metaphorical) wind. My eyes snapped open, took in the pin-pricks of blue-white stars on a black quilt of night. I picked up on a malee of crunches and stabs and electric pops, nearby but out of my wheelhouse. My legs scraped against asphalt, the heels of my boots snagged on blemishes and divots as the demon continued to drag me by my hair. The surreal pain coupled with oxygen denial, and fought like Hell to lay me back out. Made it harder to brace myself in the realm of consciousness.

I anchored myself in the knowledge that _I_ wasn't going to die. Took footing in the understanding that my _boys_ easily could, and I hoisted myself out of my seizing stupor. My left hand shivered under the strain as I forced it to move across my chest until the tips of my fingers found the hilt of the Kurdish knife. Finding gain between tremors and suffocation felt like forcing magnets together, but in the end I won. I ripped the blade, slow and uncouth, from my shoulder. I held it in my fist for a moment as a reflexive sigh of relief resulted in a sideways geyser of blood.

From the side of my eye I spotted the demon who had stuck me with the blade, his neck craning down to me.

"What are you–?"

It didn't happen happen as swift or as hard as I had hoped it would, but before he could finish his sentence, I managed to sink the knife into the calf of the demon dragging me. Voltaic orange light hissed under his skin, and he threw his head back in a howl of a scream. He stumbled to one knee, losing his grip on me in the process. I sank back, hitting the ground in a forceful collision that shotgunned a mouthful of blood up before gravity pulled it down in a shower over my face.

The uninjured demons discarded the wailing one, closing in on me instead. I felt for the knife like I had any shot of ripping it from Demon B, but my muscles still shook, my reflexes still restrained. Demon A gave my open hand a callous kick, blood spewed from my lips. The other demon, a girl I think, let out a high-pitched shriek of a giggle, even clapped when Demon A gathered a handful of my shirt in his fist and pulled me up to his face. My feet dangled over the ground, useless, my throat made terrible gargling sounds.

"Now, we ain't allowed t'kill ya," he said with a smirk and a growl. "But we have been encouraged to beat the living shit outta ya b'fore we take ya t'Crowley." His smile was violent and toothy. I coughed blood in his face, his smirk widened. "So please. _Please_. Try us."

Two beautiful things happened in that moment. The first was the sensation of knife and needle being torn from their beds of muscle and organ. There was still fluid, still burning. Would be for a while. But it put to ease a fraction of pain and dread. That was, as Castiel had put it, the silver lining; I only had to endure what Crowley could.

The second stroke from Lady Luck appeared in a brilliant beam of light that struck Demon A in the side of the face. He squinted and turned his head toward the source. There came a scream of rubber on blacktop and the demon glared.

"That _bitch_!" he spat as he released me from his grasp. I crumpled to the ground, sprayed more crimson from lips that formed a mute cry. My body seized in compulsory gasps for air that still could not pass. Blood gurgled up and washed down the sides of my face.

The next part I heard more than I saw. There was a homicidal _thump_ of flesh and bone rebounding off aluminum, followed by an unearthly growl, then a second _thump_. The screech of sliding tires coupled with a third and final _thump_ just feet from where I lay. I turned my head, watched the sideways show of black boots jumping from the van onto the pavement, scrambling for the front fender. I listened to the crack of iron against skull, the sizzling scream of holy water eating away at demon flesh, the shriek of pain, and thought; _pussy_.

I muscled past everything that strove to keep me down, reached a rattling arm over my chest. There was the din of soles slapping blacktop, the clamor of a crack and a splash and a scream as I tremorred and strained, rolling myself onto my stomach. I disgorged a mouthful of blood on asphalt and tried for air.

More gagging. More spewing.

 _Come on, John_ , I thought (at least, I think it was my thought). _You didn't outlast Hell just to give up now._

My teeth gritted as I nudged myself up on brittle arms. I screamed at myself _get up! Get up, goddamn you, get up!_ Propelled myself upright, swayed. Balance eluded me, and I tipped backwards. The hard ground rushed up to greet me with a mighty smack on the back that dislodged another mouthful of blood.

Back to square one.

A hand latched itself onto my uninjured shoulder, grappled with a handful of jacket, and yanked. I slid back a centimeter before a set of boots scrambled on the asphalt for purchase. Mystery's voice reached my ears in underbreath mutterings as a second effort to drag me was made.

"Ugh, get up!" she grumbled through clenched teeth, more to herself than me, before managing to drag me a full inch. She stumbled, let go of my collar, and shoved her arms under my pits one at a time, securing me in the crook of her elbows while retaining both of her weapons; one iron crowbar, and one Kurdish blade oozing with blood.

 _Who's blade is that?_

The question awoke the vision of a slain Sam, his body lying cold and limp on the ground, and it pushed me to exert my strength. I dug a bootheel into the ground, pushing back on Mystery's pull. Rinse, repeat; pull, push, her grunting complaints about goddamn this and goddamn that, me gargling bloody sobs that spilled down my chin.

She half dragged, half guided me around the van, then paused at the side door. A knee dug into my back, a pull guided me to balance along a slender thigh, and she unhooked one arm — her left, the one holding the crowbar — to roll the door open. She carelessly threw the bar inside, then made some awkward adjustments as she moved to climb up while attempting to keep her hold on me. She slipped, fell to the van's floor on her ass, grumbled, but used it. Her legs cinched around my midsection, her left arm secured itself around my chest.

My feet skid blind over the ground, searching for equilibrium. I found it and gave a determined but weak push, sending both of us back. Without skipping a beat (but with an unnecessary amount of vulgarity), Mystery scooted the both of us backwards until we were both well inside. She untangled her arm and her legs and stood, rolling me onto my stomach in the process, then threw herself into the driver's seat with the blade still in her fist.

"Sss—!" I vomited blood in my efforts to cry out for my sons. "D-d—!"

"Workin' on it," Mystery stated as she shifted the escape car out of park.

"F— Fr—!"

I spewed more blood.

"Yeah, yeah, yeah," she muttered. From her lips came three sharp whistles as she punched on the gas, shooting the van in reverse. "Try not to fall out."

The van jerked to a stop, then lurched forward, wheels peeling in a rubbery scent. I tried to sit up, but her driving was too erratic for me to find balance. There was a thud and the van bounced under a bump of a body. Another thud, another savage tumble.

We slowed near the brutal song of knuckle clashing against bone, of knife on flesh and demon versus man. My sons were in there, I knew (or hoped wildly) they were. I made a blind grab for the bench seat when the driver's door cracked open, and, quite abruptly, a recording of Mystery's voice began to play:

 _Exorcizamus te…_

I gnashed my teeth against the Latin command, but as soon as it had begun, it started to fade away. The door snapped shut and Mystery slammed on the gas, speeding off into the night. My fingers searched for purchase as the van weaved, and I felt myself slip.

That's when Lady Luck brought me Freya. She bounded through the open door, gracefully maneuvering around my battered body to my head. She latched her teeth onto my jacket collar and tugged me back, holding fast as she kept me in place.

The engine began to sputter and spur, clanking as it slowly died, then roared back to life. One of the demons was trying to slow us down, but Mystery's prerecorded exorcism was interfering. I almost wanted it to succeed in stopping Mystery from making off with Crowley's prize. Hell, I _did_ want him to stop her. Sam and Dean were still back there.

And then, the van did a sudden 180 before it fell into an abrupt park.

"I hope your dog made it in," Mystery commented with actual genuineness. The doors clicked into lock, and the van bounced as she rushed to close the door. She dove, throwing herself on me with a haste that startled Freya. My companion unclenched her jaw, freeing me in time for Mystery's impact to force a spray of blood to splatter across Freya's muzzle. Mystery took note of what looked to her like crimson stuck to air, and, as she dipped over my neck, she hugged Freya's head against mine, squeezing us together with her arms and her chest like a mother protecting her children. Freya protested with a mild whine, but patiently allowed her to shield us, recognizing friend from enemy.

Mystery stayed like this for a moment, and I could feel her pulse, her heart beating wildly in her chest. My lungs made another attempt for air, and this time they got some. An involuntary convulsion roiled through me, my body's response to oxygen and its desperate pulls for more of it. Mystery wrestled with me, determined to keep Freya's and my head under wraps, until, at long last, she let go.

At first I thought I had tossed her, but as I lay grappling for precious air in urgent chokes, she rose to her knees, peeked out the windshield, then calmly settled herself behind the steering wheel. She gunned it, sending me onto my back as we surged forward. The van swung, skidded to a halt, and unlocked. I was pulling myself up as the door slid open to reveal Dean with a sheen of sweat and blood glistening on his face. His hardened expression cascaded into relief upon seeing me.

"Thank god," he breathed an alleviated sigh. And then he noticed how much blood I was wearing. "What the hell…?"

"Crowley." Sam's voice hovered behind Dean before his face came into view. His shirt was torn at the collar, a patch of blood matted down in his mane just above his hairline.

"Son of a bitch," Dean muttered, hanging his head. "I'm gonna kill him."

"Plot your revenge on the road," Mystery called. "Now go get our shit, and get in the fucking van."

My sentiments exactly.

* * *

 _Thanks to everyone reading and reviewing! You make my day and my muse happy!_


	23. River Run

_**Between Here and There**_

The damage was worse by daylight.

Under the golden light of day, the bruises and the cuts stood out ugly and loud beside our pit-stop riverscape view. The scent of mayhem and death rolled off the spoils and mars, threatened to taint the sweet smell of wet grass and rich earth. To expose the native life to their poisons.

Dean had a shiner under his left eye, and a long blue stain that traced the right side of his jaw. Flecks of dried blood clung to the stubble on his chin, a thin cut ran from his cheekbone almost all the way down to his lips. Sam sustained a gash just inside his hairline between his forehead and his eyes, and a heavy welt around it. His right cheekbone was swollen in a semicircle that arched up to curve around his eye, and a spattering of what appeared like road rash that colored in half of that side of his face. The way he moved his head told of a stiff neck, the way he stripped himself down to his boxer shorts screamed exhaustion.

Mystery collected the fewest wounds in the malee, but did not escape unscathed. A hole in her jeans displayed a gnarly red scrape on her knee, the heels of her hands were red and raw. Mostly, though, all she ended up with was a broken right arm.

The misshapen arm had been discovered by Sam during the race out of town, but Mystery brushed it off as unimportant. "One of you can set it when we stop," she had dismissed as she took random backroads at random turns. "One of you does know how to set a bone, right?"

Dean was the one to do it.

"I make no promises," he told her from his place beneath an ancient willow. He extended her arm out, pronouncing the jaring curve in her forearm. The black and purple band around the break screamed out under the green leaves of the tree by the river, but Mystery did not. Not at his touch, and not at the crack as the arm straightened. "You're still gonna want to see a doctor."

"Yeah, probably," she agreed with a dismissive shrug. She dropped her arm and undid the button of her jeans, grinning up at Dean. "Ready for a pioneer bath?"

In spite of everything, Dean couldn't resist falling into old habit, and, blue hair aside, Mystery was an attractive woman.

"Hell yeah," he replied with a sly smile and a quick wiggle of his brow.

I rolled my eyes from my perch on a high rock on the opposite end of the river. I looked like a walking massacre; the male equivalent of _Carrie_ on prom night. I felt it, too. Raw and worn down, drenched in blood. Humiliated and provoked to that unnervingly calm and wholly miserable edge of chaos.

I lit a cigarette, tried like hell not to stare at my blood crusted hands. I cast my eyes away, drawing as much focus as I could on our surroundings; the lonely dirt road that cut through rolling green hills, the misty backdrop of timeworn mountains, the whist river that murmured over rocks as it ran to a nearby forest. It was quiet. Not peaceful, but silent.

Mother Nature hates a demon.

I closed my eyes and thought _Max?_

There was no reply.

 _Max? Was that you last night?_

Nothing.

 _I could use a… company right now, man._

Another response of deserved nothingness.

I missed Castiel. There was nothing the celestial misfit could have said to make me feel better, but at least I wouldn't have felt so numb. So alone.

A feminine scream brought my attention back to the river below in time to watch Dean toss Mystery into a deeper section of water. She landed in a cannonball of a splash that piqued Freya's interests. She took to all fours and cocked her head in longing at the waterplay.

"Go on," I grumbled, tossing my head toward the water. She bolted down, half running and half slipping over rocks, and plunged herself in with my boys and our damsel.

"You commin' or what?" Dean called up.

"Or what," I said around my cigarette and he rolled his eyes. Mystery popped up beside him and tackled him into the water. He came back up with her wrapped in his arms, her flailing half-hearted and squealing. They almost passed for happy in that moment. Not as a unit, but as individuals who rarely saw proverbial light.

God it was irritating.

Sam looked on with dull interest as he lathered in liquid soap. He blinked, and a wave of confusion swept over his face. His eyes closed, his head shook, then he looked around again. A deep breath gathered in his chest and he continued scrubbing with tender care.

"Come on, dad," Dean called again, stealing my attention again. "You look like a Walker. Minus the creepy eyes and the rotting…" He paused and gestured a circle around his face."Thing."

I ignored the comparison that was lost on me and flicked ash into the river.

"Looks cold."

It wasn't entirely a lie. The water did look cold, as everything topside was. But a cold bath wasn't what kept me dry and crusted in rusting crimson.

My gaze wandered, caught Sam's knowing eyes. He quickly looked away, rubbed the nape of his neck.

"I'll clean up at camp," I said absently, bowing my head to keep my eyes away from it all. Toddler logic; if I couldn't see them, they couldn't see me.

"You should at least change," Dean mentioned, holding defensive hands up in an onslaught of splashing perpetuated by Mystery, who continued to neglect the condition of her arm.

I could have argued longer. I was Dad, after all, and I was my own damn being. But that's when suspicions rise. That's when scenes are made, angst felt. There would be a show one way or the other. It was on me to decide how it was going to go down.

I stood, flicked my cigarette into the river as a fuck you to Mother Nature and as a note of contempt for Dean's relentlessness. Sam watched from the corner of his eye, feigning distraction with rinsing himself as I jumped down from my perch. Hasty and harsh, I pulled my jacket off and threw it hard at the ground, my zippo clinking muted in my pocket as it landed. I stripped my shirt off and let it fall into to river, let it slip away with the current. I stood silent for a moment, letting Dean get a good view of the angry lesions and pink scars that trashed my arms and my chest.

"Those aren't all from last night," he observed, his voice flat.

"No, they're not," I agreed as I kicked my boots off. I stripped down to my boxers and walked without fault across the stony bank. I waded into the water, tried not to shiver as its frigid fingers curled around me. I let go, let the icy claws pull me down to the riverbed. As the drink washed over my scalp, my mind turned to the Polar Bear swims from childhood; townspeople would gather once a winter on a frozen lake, chop it open and jump in. It was a fond memory that warmed me for a moment. Made me feel a little better. And then I opened my eyes and saw the remnants of the night that washed away from me in marbled red ribbons.

I emerged, wiped water and blood from my face. Dean was staring at me, hard and heartbroken.

"We gonna talk about this?" he demanded.

I shook my head.

"Nope."

"How long?" Dean asked, his voice gravel and hail. I gave him a deadpan look and leaned back into the water, faking relaxation.

Sam hesitated where he stood, looking like a lost puppy in a monsoon. His gaze wandered between me and Dean for a moment before his lips pursed and his eyes closed in a grimace. He caught my stares when his eyes opened, and he shook his head, in so many ways telling me he was fine, don't bother asking, thanks. His back turned to me, and he lumbered to the riverbank.

"Don't worry about it," I finally said. "Pass me the soap."

"How long?!" Dean barked, shaking now. His brows folded in a mask of anger to quiet the hurt.

The unusual quiet reemerged in the rising tempers. Freya paused in her efforts to catch the river in her mouth. Mystery lapsed in momentary thought with the soap bottle in hand, throwing cautious looks between Dean and me. She decided to toss it low before she gilded back through the water with a haunting and practiced silence, then joined Sam on land.

"Answer me, goddamnit!" Dean shouted, disturbing the river's surface with a forceful fist that looked less than satisfying.

"Since we set up camp," I confessed in a grumble of words. I quickly lathered my hair, my face. Soaped past the open wounds on my shoulder and chest, the track marks in my arms.

"So practically this whole time," Dean fumed. "Crowley's been slicing you up and stuffing your veins with…?"

"Holy water," I answered before I submerged for a minute to rinse the suds off. When I popped back up, Dean was staring at me with a sickened look on his face.

"This whole time," he reiterated. "And you kept this from me? From _us_?" He gestured back to Sam before he turned to search for backup, but where he expected a matched expression of anger, he found downcast eyes. "You've got to be fucking kidding me." Dean rolled his eyes. "This family and its fucking secrets." He looked to me, wounded. "Why?"

My gaze wandered for a moment, taking note of Mystery's hand on Sam's shoulder, Sam's head in his hands. Him nodding slow in agreement.

"Because you blame yourself enough," I told him with absence, my attention evenly divided.

"Because it's my fault!" he blurted.

"I'm not in the mood for this," I growled with a warning calm as I strolled to shore.

"Yeah," Dean scoffed in sarcasm. "Because nothing tops off a demon raid like finding out your father has been secretly tortured by the king of fucking Hell for a month." He paused, his expression turning to bitter understanding. "Cas fucking knew, too, didn't he?"

I pulled my dirty, blood stained jeans on, my dirty socks, saying nothing. Watching as Sam ambled off across uneven ground towards the van. Mystery, fully dressed except for footwear, came to the edge of the river.

"It pains me to ruin a heartwarming family moment," she called with a gentle voice. "But Sam's not feeling so hot."

"Tell him to take an aspirin and lay down," Dean gnarled, hot and short.

"Let me rephrase that," Mystery sighed, impatient. "Sam's showing signs of a traumatic brain injury and we should probably get him to a hospital before he loses…"

Her words trailed off as she followed Dean's horrified gaze to Sam. Sam was doubled over, vomiting in the weeds. He lost balance, fell to one knee, threw up again. His body swayed for a second, found favor with his left side, and he collapsed with a padded thud.

"Consciousness," Mystery finished in a mutter as her face grew urgent. She grabbed her boots from under the tree and ran. Dean charged through the river in bursts and sprays of water that slapped me as I trailed close behind. Freya followed, passed me and surged beyond the bank towards Sam.

I emerged from the river dripping and freezing, but none of it touched my mind. It was a long ways gone in a flood of disturbing worries and what-ifs. Freya's sudden and incessant yapping did nothing to quiet the dark thoughts as Mystery's figure slid over the grass like a home run hitter to Sam where she put her hands on her face.

"Sam?" she chanted. Slapped him across his unscraped cheek, soft but hurried. "Sam!"

"Sammy!" Dean joined in, his tone a combination of command and desperation. He hadn't bothered to dress, had barely even paused to gather his clothes. Dirt clung to his wet knees as he sank beside his brother and shoved at a shoulder. "Sam!"

I crouched down at Sam's head, but Dean was still angry. Not still. Livid. He shoved me back in a fit of polluted emotions, his eyes howled with betrayal and fear. And _god_ that was so much worse than drowning in holy water and blood.

Mystery stood and gave Dean and me a grave look.

"We need to get him to a hospital," she stated with haste. "Now."


	24. Some Kind Of Fate

_**Somewhere In The Middle Of Tennessee**_

If there ever was a Hell on Earth, it was on the back country roads inside that goddamn minivan. Time stretched its fluid arms to fit as much of itself in a single second as it could. Fear boiled in the humidity, melancholy beaded along brows. The silence was haunting, but the desperate pleas that rolled from Dean's throat were torture. The mild slaps he laid into his brother's good cheek, the occasional yell of "c'mon, Sammy!" Each unanswered hit and cry stung worse than holy water.

Looking at them was worse. Sam was sprawled gawky and still across the back seat, his head motionless in Dean's lap. Dean huddled himself over his brother, like he could shield Sam from the damage with his body. I choked on regret and dread at the vision of them, my boys – one half dying, one already dead on the inside – and had to turn away. Only, when I turned away, I was still choking, but on anger.

 _I'm going to slaughter that ate-up motherfucker. Today._

The clock on the dash claimed it had only taken us seventeen minutes to reach the nearest hospital, but damn if it didn't feel like a year. And then, like a tightly wound rubber band, time snapped itself forward, compensating for all it had lost on the way. Life lurched into fast-forward; people moved in blurs of blue scrubs and severe medical equipment, spoke in soundless words. The only thing that would come into focus, the only thing that would still long enough not to blend into the chaos was Sam. Quiet, peaceful-looking Sam, his eyes closed, his long hair askew on the gourney. Lying there with a shallow breath and a face full of battle.

 _I should have been there with him_.

They carried him away at a full-blown run, and, when Dean looked back at me, time readjusted itself to live broadcast. His brows furrowed tight, jade eyes glared, jaw clenched. The lines on his face whispered fear and screamed anger. Not just anger. Disgust. _This is your fault_.

A hundred thousand tiny daggers in whatever tarnished remnants remained of _John_.

And the shadow grew.

I heard a voice nearby, but it was white noise to me as I watched Dean turn and run to catch up with his brother.

"Urr ye deaf or dolton?" Mystery snapped in a Scottish accent that astonished with its plausibility and confused with its rapidity. I looked over and downish to find Mystery with one hand on her hip, the other holding the van keys out. "Ah said shift th' van 'n' secure th' perimeter. Ken?"

My brows collapsed under distaste for her commanding tone.

 _And what's with the accent?_

Mystery rolled her eyes and threw the keys at me. They thud against my chest, and I caught them before they dropped.

"Heid doon, arse up," she barked. "In case ye hud nae noticed." She held up her broken arm. "I'll be needing medical attention masell."

She stood fast in my glower, a mountain against a brutal wind. My gaze wandered to my surroundings, noticing for the first time the small audience we had attracted. They looked on with interest, waiting with eyes almost fearful; "you'd better do what she says, mister."

 _What the fuck did I miss while I was standing right fucking here?_

I cracked my neck in a display of contempt, then turned and lumbered through the sliding Emergency doors. My fingers trembled around the keys in my hand, and I clutched them, bracing myself against a wave of sick; a tide of polluted emotions that dizzied the head and weakened my muscles. I leaned a hand against the van – parked under the canopy of the ER entrance – and drew in a staggered breath. My fingers unfurled, found the metal keys bloody. Two raw gashes and a shallow puncture kissed my palm, but I barely felt it against the nauseating waterspout of guilt and rage.

Freya greeted me with a low whine echoing in her throat when I climbed behind the steering wheel. She rested her head in my lap, protective and comforting. I sat there for a minute, stroking her head, staring distantly. Lost. Sam could die, and Dean was right.

 _This is all your fault_.

I pulled slow through the main lot, passing row after row of trucks and cars, Freya's head on my lap the whole time. I considered my hound's loyalty and her compassion, and I managed to tear myself free of the toxic storm long enough to find gratitude. I wasn't truly alone as long as she was with me.

And then, as I parked under the shade of an oak on the far end of the property, I remembered the angel.

I didn't have a phone — never bothered to get one this side of Hell — but Sam's had been stashed in the glovebox. I pulled the compartment open and grabbed it. Finding no password protection, I accessed his contacts and scrolled. Castiel wasn't too far down the list, but when I found him, I hesitated.

 _He's probably halfway across the Atlantic by now_.

My thumb hovered over the call button. He wouldn't get the message until he landed, and then what? Would he give his celestial family the middle finger and tell them to hold on just long enough for him to fly back to heal Sam? Did he even still have his grace?

I shifted my gaze to Freya when she abruptly abandoned me to put her muzzle on the floor. She sniffed with purpose, moving to the back of the van where she peered out the window and growled at what she found. I shifted my eyes to the rearview mirror and spotted what had gotten my girl so hot and bothered.

Adjacent to the parking lot was a garden; a part of the hospital, but somewhat removed. Most of it was manicured lawn and a little paved path that meandered under oaks and willows beside a serene brook. A fountain sat partially enclosed by tall hedges and rose bushes, and, sitting on a mock wrought iron bench with her arms stretched along the back was a demon.

And she was staring right at me.

 _Fuck_ was what I should have been thinking. _Oh look, something to kill_ was more accurate to what went off in my addled mind at the sight of the mangled red face that hid behind a young brunette in a tan peacoat.

I left Freya behind in a fit of blind rage, ravenous for another kill. My Kurdish blade was unsheathed in a mechanical response to my death itch, my lips curled, my eyes narrowed. Her red eyes followed me as I stormed across the parking lot, subtle amusement written along her brow.

"Having a bad day, John?" she asked, mocking and rhetorical.

"Oh, it's about to get a little better," I replied anyway, descending upon her with my knife drawn back, ready to strike.

"I wouldn't do that if I were you," she said, so confident in her words that she took her attention away from me to give it to her polished fingernails.

"I wouldn't be so sure about that, sweetheart," I growled.

The demon rolled her eyes and gave me an irritable look.

"Really, John?" she said, wrinkling her nose in disappointment. "You're a smart guy. You're a little pissed off right now, but surely you can figure out why killing me would be out of your best interests."

The intensity at which I held my arm struggled as realization struck me. I bristled under its weight, pursed my lips.

"You go missing, Crowley knows where we are," I vocalized in something of a mutter, relaxing my weapon at my side.

"Good boy," she praised in sarcasm. She stood, putting a good foot between us. "I'm Xael, by the way."

"I don't care," I spat.

I was in a tight spot, and I was in no mood for it. Which only made it worse. My eyes scanned our surroundings as I put my blade away, replacing it with my cigarette pack, which was infuriatingly soggy.

"What's from stopping me from killing you and moving Sam to a different hospital?" I challenged. Xael watched me open my pack, then discard the whole thing in an angry heave when I found the contents ruined from my mad dash across the river.

"I don't know what's wrong with him, but I'm going to assume it's bad enough to keep him stationary for a while if you risked your hides to get him here," she replied, like this should have been obvious to me. As it was. "Just so you are aware, there's at least one demon in every town in a hundred mile radius."

A deep breath filled my lungs and my temper. I clenched my fingers into fists, cracked my neck. Narrowed my eyes.

Xael dipped her skinny fingers into her coat pocket and extracted a silver cigarette case. She opened it and held it out for me. I stared at the neat rows of cigarettes stamped that filled the holder to capacity. A peace offering. A bid for my ear and my time.

"What are you after?" I accused, accepting one of her fancy cigarettes. I placed the filter side between my lips and patted my pockets for my zippo. Before I could extract it, Xael had produced a dancing flame on the the end of her own, and was holding it out to me. I hesitated; I'd already taken a cigarette from her. Why not let the bitch light it for me?

 _Because she's a fucking demon._

 _Aren't we both?_

I leaned forward towards the flame, dipped the end of the cigarette in the fire and inhaled.

"I'm not after anything," she claimed, snapping her lighter shut as I straightened my posture and exhausted a cloud of gray smoke in her face. She let it tease her meatsuit's skin with a passive expression. Her lighter was returned to her pocket as she added, "I just know where to place my bets."

My brows folded in question, eyes narrowed in suspicion. Surely she wasn't suggesting what I thought she was. The vomit-inducing idea that had been briefly discussed and just as quickly shot out of the realm of possibilities.

Xael kicked off her explanation with a question;

"Haven't you wondered why Crowley was trying to mark one of your boys?"

She nodded to my left forearm, referencing the binding burn hidden under my sleeve.

"We've been a little preoccupied trying to remove it," I confessed, rolling my shoulders. "But since you're here, why don't you indulge me?"

"Crowley's been paranoid about an uprising in the works," she informed me, shifting her gaze about, making sure we were the only demons around.

"Is he right?" I tested around my cigarette.

"Of course he's right," she replied with a quick tongue. Her eyes snapped back to mine. "Nobody likes that fuckwad."

I nodded in agreement and rolled my fingers in a silent _go on_.

"There wasn't much in the works," she continued. "Whispers, mostly, but they were approving. Crowley, being not an idiot, started building up his own alliances, inside and outside of Hell. Started making deals with gods and rogue reapers."

"Why pull Sam and Dean into it?" I wanted to know.

"Because they're Sam and Dean fucking Winchester!" she raved, throwing her arms up. "He wanted to insure they would be on his side when the time came. And what better way than tie the life of one of them to his own?"

I shifted, weighed her words. Determined the honesty behind them.

 _She's telling the truth._

"And then I wandered in," I said before drawing in another hit of tobacco.

"You didn't just wander in, John," she said. A shrewd smile unfolded across her pouty lips, an eager gleam sparked in her brown eyes. "You changed _everything_."

She _was_ thinking it.

"Ah," I said with a knowing air, exhaling smoke in my speech. "You want me to lead your little crusade."

" _Revolution_ ," she corrected me, her keen gaze still alight. "And it's not about what we _want_. It's about what's inevitable."

"Is it, though?" I posed, insincere and hostile. "Because I would rather stick my neat little knife in my neck before I took the crown."

The artful smile didn't waver, the gleam did not fade. A sharp jab of unease poked the bear that was my anger.

"Fuck off with your Fate crap," I growled, then took another drag. "I'm full up on Fate. It's not going to happen."

"Fate has fuck all to do with anything anymore," Xael said as casual as could be. "Crowley thinks he can torture you into submission. That once he makes a _proper_ demon out of you, that you'll become his super soldier. His death machine." She paused to take a calculated step forward. "But you're not going to be Crowley's little bitch, are you?" she said with a tone that bordered on seductive. The spark in her eyes glimmered ecstatic, her smile broadened. "You're going to kill him."

"You do realize I'd only be killing myself, right?" I said, raising my left arm in gesture. She waved it off.

"We can remove it," she told me, like it was as simple as taking an aspirin. Her smile turned devious. "When the time's right."

She watched in delight as my posture went rigid and uncomfortable.

"Yeah, well. Either way I'll kill the son of a bitch, but I'm not taking over," I said, cold and stern.

"Even if you had a choice –" she stated, clear and flat. "– and you don't, by the way – once Crowley's done with you, you'll want it."

"I plan on having this thing off long before that can happen, sweetheart," I said, raising my arm again.

Still she smiled.

"You were savage as a human, John, but as a demon." She paused, giggled. Took another step forward.

"Shut up," I growled in warning.

"When Crowley's done with you," she whispered, provocative. "You could bring the world to its knees."

"Shut up," I warned again, my chest tight, my fists clenched.

The thought of my wrath wreaking havoc across the earth sent shivers down her spine.

"Poetic, isn't it?"

"Shut up!" I barked. My left hand snapped up and grabbed her face in a tight hold, my eyes turned black. Even with her mouth contorted, she was still smiling that goddamn smile. I pushed her back and she stumbled a few steps, but she didn't fall. No. She laughed.

"It's happening already, isn't it?" she chortled, righting herself. "Your turning."

"Fuck off," I said, blinking furiously against the blackness that wouldn't recede. I flicked the nub of my cigarette into the fountain, turned to Xael. "Now," I said. "What exactly am I going to do with you?"

"Seeing as how you need me, I'm going to vote that you leave me alone," she said as-a-matter-of-factly. She folded her arms, that fucking smirk still present. "I'm going to stay here and let Crowley believe I haven't seen your fugitive ass, or that I'm aware of Sam's medical condition. I'll protect them as best as I can without tipping Crowley off."

My brows furrowed.

"Why?" It dawned on me as the word left my lips. I nodded in knowing. "Kissing my ass already."

She shrugged.

"Just don't forget us little folk when you hit the big time," she said.

I rolled my eyes and backed away to leave the encounter.

"Keep dreaming, darlin'," I said.

"Likewise, Johnny boy," she returned without losing that fucking smile. "I don't have to tell you to be careful, do I?" Her eyes locked on mine with a grave stare. "Mind who you trust." She shifted her gaze to the hospital for a moment before it returned to me. "Always question the company you keep."

Her implication was not lost.

 _Mystery_.

I turned my back on Xael, took a step to leave her behind.

"Oh!" she called after me. I wavered, clenched my jaw against irritation as I awarded her my attention one last time that sunny afternoon. With an underhand throw, she passed me her silver cigarette case. I snatched it with my left hand, and she nodded like we were suddenly foxhole buddies. My eyes gave an automatic roll, but I didn't return her tobacco or her case. Instead, I stuffed them in my pocket as I turned to leave.

The trek back to the hospital found me anxious and antagonized. The idea of Mystery betraying us was irksome, but that could easily be dealt with, assuming Xael's warning implication was honest. What bothered me the most was _even if you had a choice_. It played like a broken record at dizzying length, trying to capture me in its promise. Urging me to fulfill my _new_ destiny.

Even in the afterlife there were plans for me. Higher powers pushing me around like a chess piece, moving me where they wanted me, giving zero fucks about where _I_ wanted me. Damning me to an eternity as a puppet.

Castiel's voice snuck into my head for the second time, whispering into the echo of calamity.

 _There's always another way._

And I woke up. My mind cleared, and I knew exactly what I had to do.

I pulled Sam's phone out of my pocket and called the angel's cell. Straight to voicemail.

"This is Castiel's voicemail. Make your voice a mail."

I rolled my eyes.

"Cas," I spoke after the familiar tone, my eyes fixed dead ahead on the future _I_ was going to choose. "It's John. Call me back as soon as you land." Pause. Breath. "I need you to tell me everything you know about closing the gates of Hell."

* * *

 _Thank you for reading! :)_


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